Can Lessons From COVID-19 Prevent Disease Outbreak From Mars Samples? Scientists Explain

In preparation for NASA’s Mars sample-return mission, scientists discussed the possibility of a disease outbreak on Earth caused by a pathogen from the Red Planet. Scientists noted that the lessons learned from the ongoing coronavirus outbreak could prevent this type of scenario from happening.

As the number of COVID-19 confirmed cases increases in various countries, international agencies and leaders are beginning to learn about the systems needed in order to combat the spread of the disease. One of these is the need to implement rapid and accurate diagnostic tests to detect the virus.

For some scientists, these kinds of lessons can be applied if an outbreak on Earth caused by diseases from Mars occurs. This terrifying scenario was conceptualized based on NASA’s plans to carry out a sample-return mission on Mars. For this mission, the agency’s rover will collect rock and soil samples on Mars.

These samples will then be brought back to Earth to be studied for traces of microbial life. If the samples contain life, then there’s a chance that they could also have pathogen-carrying organisms. Since the nature of these potential Martian pathogens is yet to be discovered, there is currently no way of knowing how they would react to Earth’s condition.

In a worst-case scenario, the pathogens within the samples taken from Mars would react adversely to their environment, which could eventually lead to a disease outbreak. According to Catharine Conley, NASA’s former planetary protection officer, this is the reason why it’s important to study how diseases interact with their environment.

“As with historical infectious disease epidemics, the coronavirus that's spreading currently is another example of why it's so important to understand the consequences of interacting with environments humans rarely contact and then distributing widely whatever [they] picked up,” she said according to Space.com.

For John Rummel, another former planetary protection officer for NASA and a senior scientist for the Search Of Extraterrestrial Life Institute in California, Earth should first implement important procedures and systems before proceeding with a sample-return mission. The scientist noted that these systems should be based on the lessons currently being learned from the current COVID-19 outbreak.

“I think that it might be instructive to consider the climate of concern that accompanies the current situation with coronavirus,” he explained. “I think that the challenge for a Mars sample return activity is to be open about precautions taken in the face of ignorance, which is what we have … when we discuss life on Mars.”