As Nature states:
Dozens of microbial species may have accompanied the Curiosity rover to Mars, where it landed in August 2012. The stowaways withstood spacecraft cleaning methods before the rover's launch, although no one knows for sure whether the bacteria survived the inter-planetary ride. A study that identified 377 strains found that a surprising number resist extreme temperatures and damage caused by ultraviolet-C radiation, the most potentially harmful type. The results, presented today at the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology, are a first step towards elucidating how certain bacteria might survive decontamination and space flight.
After all the care we take in not contaminating our water etc we allow NASA to act with abandon in sending some of the most virulent of Earth's species to our nearest neighbor. Where is the EPA on this one?
The article continues:
Although spacecraft go through multiple cleaning steps to ensure that they bear no biological contaminants, previous reports suggest that Curiosity project developers did not follow these planetary protection protocols to the letter. The regulations are a safeguard; whether microbes can tolerate conditions on the surface of Mars is still unknown. “We don’t know yet if there’s really a threat,” says Smith. “Until we know, it’s important to take a precautionary approach.”
That is rather neglectful one could say. Next we will be sending our TV and movie products to totally contaminate them!
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