Publication Date
2007
Abstract
Life can travel between planets. The many spacecraft humans have sent to the Moon have inadvertently provided passage to uncounted millions of microorganisms, some of which have remained alive on the lunar surface for years. What would happen if humans also sent microbes to celestial bodies that may harbor indigenous life, such as Mars or Europa? The presence of Earthly life would vitiate the reliability of future tests for extraterrestrial life on those bodies, and their "contamination"could thereby imperil what might be the greatest discovery in the history of biology. What if a spacecraft returning to Earth after visiting another planet brought extraterrestrial microbes back with it? The microbes could proliferate on Earth, disrupting or dismantling the ecosystems that sustain our planet. This Note discusses the inadequacy of current law protecting against interplanetary microbial travel, then proposes a novel international solution.
Recommended Citation
Butler, Jeb
(2007)
"Unearthly Microbes and the Laws Designed to Resist Them,"
Georgia Law Review: Vol. 41:
No.
4, Article 7.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/glr/vol41/iss4/7