1 Why are we protecting the planets?

In this section we will introduce you to some of the scientific debates that mean planetary protection is a key consideration within the space sector today, especially for missions to other planetary bodies.

Activity 1

Timing: 5 minutes

The Open University’s AstrobiologyOU [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] research group (who have authored this course) organised an international event in London in 2024 – the International COSPAR Planetary Protection Week (ICPPW) – which brought together researchers, policy makers, and representatives from national space agencies and industry representatives. At the event we asked the participants ‘why is planetary protection important?’

Watch Video 1 that collates some of their views. As you watch the video, note down some of the reasons that they suggest.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 1 Experts’ responses to the question ‘why is planetary protection important?’

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Transcript: Video 1 Experts’ responses to the question ‘why is planetary protection important?’

Planetary protection is so important because it enables exploration, it enables science, both current missions and future missions.

So it's all about protecting our ability to learn and to learn through exploration of the solar system.

To me, planetary protection is really important because as a scientist that's looking for life elsewhere, we need to be able to protect the environments that we're looking for that life so we know that it's life endemic to a planet and not something that we brought from Earth.

One of the key reasons plastic protection is so important is that when we go to these worlds, we want to be sure that what we're detecting there is native to that world.

We want to, we don't want to be studying something we've brought with us from the Earth.

So that's one key reason, scientific reason for wanting to, to understand what we're bringing with us and take any necessary steps we can to minimize it.

And that's quite aside from from other reasons, which could be, you know, protecting the, the, the environment itself for its own sake.

We don't want to kind of be spreading Earth contamination to these places because they, they have their own history and that we want to keep them pristine for their own sake as well.

Planetary production is a very important item in space exploration.

The reason is if we do not do planetary protection, then we cannot do a safe and sustainable exploration of our solar system and the bodies within it because we cannot retrieve the science that we need without contaminating the body that we're exploring.

And we also could put in danger our own biosphere by bringing back material that has not gone through the protocol and the processes that planetary protection has put in place.

So as we go through time, we're going to explore further and further into our solar system.

Hopefully, we're going to be bringing back more and more samples from different planetary bodies, some of them habitable.

And we're going to need to make sure that we can protect the Earth while doing it, while taking everything we can from these samples to understand the origin of our solar system and perhaps ourselves.

End transcript: Video 1 Experts’ responses to the question ‘why is planetary protection important?’

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Video 1 Experts’ responses to the question ‘why is planetary protection important?’

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Note that COSPAR is the Committee on Space Research, and you will learn more about them later.

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Answer

Each of the experts came to the meeting with a different perspective on planetary protection, so there were several ideas you might have noted down. You might have mentioned that planetary protection helps our ability to undertake safe and sustainable exploration of the Solar System, allowing us to protect environments that might harbour life or environments that are pristine and free from contamination. You might also have noted that planetary protection enables us to ensure that any life we might find is not from Earth but is native to the body we might be visiting. This means that our scientific investigations of other parts of the Solar System are rigorous and reliable. We could also put our own biosphere in danger if we don’t protect our environment here on Earth from life from space.

Although this course focuses on planetary protection, there are many other reasons why we should try to protect the wider space environment. There is an interest, for example, in exploiting resources available elsewhere in the Solar System, but who owns these resources? Is it morally appropriate to disrupt or destroy pristine space environments? Who is responsible for stewardship of the space environment when space endeavours change from being the domain of nation states and into commercial ventures? Shouldn’t we ensure we do not limit the opportunities of future generations to explore and enjoy our Solar System?

If you’re interested in learning more about some of these wider issues, you may choose to watch our videos:

• Space Resources: how do we make space fair?
• Space Debris: Is space getting too dangerous?

For now, let’s explore some of the scientific reasons for planetary protection, starting with the search for life beyond Earth.