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<blockquote data-quote="Janx" data-source="post: 6851082" data-attributes="member: 8835">I think Umbran's got several factors he's considering here:a) right now it is easier to send probes to mars (and diseases) than it is to get probes (and diseases) back from mars.&nbsp; Unlike the moon, we have no Mars rocks delivered to us by the space program.b) germs,etc generally require a compatible environment.&nbsp; For instance, an old stat I heard was that HIV could not exist outside a host body for more than 24 hours, due to its need for temperature, etc that a host provides (thus toilet seat transfers were pretty slim).&nbsp; On that principal, any virus that is happily doing its thing on Mars likely &quot;requires&quot; an environment like mars.&nbsp; Getting slurped into a space ship and it's horribly warm and moist environment would likely be toxic to its biology.c) umbran is married to a medical type person who knows way more about this crap than I do, and this has probably been the subject of many breakfast debates... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />now it's possible a particular bug is adaptable enough to go from environmental extremes, but the probability of that is low, based on the examples of biology on earth.&nbsp; It is really difficult to design something durable for multiple environments, let alone the odds of one evolving that way.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Janx, post: 6851082, member: 8835"] I think Umbran's got several factors he's considering here: a) right now it is easier to send probes to mars (and diseases) than it is to get probes (and diseases) back from mars. Unlike the moon, we have no Mars rocks delivered to us by the space program. b) germs,etc generally require a compatible environment. For instance, an old stat I heard was that HIV could not exist outside a host body for more than 24 hours, due to its need for temperature, etc that a host provides (thus toilet seat transfers were pretty slim). On that principal, any virus that is happily doing its thing on Mars likely "requires" an environment like mars. Getting slurped into a space ship and it's horribly warm and moist environment would likely be toxic to its biology. c) umbran is married to a medical type person who knows way more about this crap than I do, and this has probably been the subject of many breakfast debates... :) now it's possible a particular bug is adaptable enough to go from environmental extremes, but the probability of that is low, based on the examples of biology on earth. It is really difficult to design something durable for multiple environments, let alone the odds of one evolving that way. [/QUOTE]

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