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<blockquote data-quote="Dannyalcatraz" data-source="post: 6851297" data-attributes="member: 19675">The biggest risk of &quot;alien contagion&quot; isn't to actual humans in the form of a &quot;Rigelian Fever&quot; or &quot;Space Herpes&quot;, but rather to our machinery in the form of a truly extremely alien biology.&nbsp; Something on the other end of the biological bell curve, an extremophile as compared to the typical terrestrial critter. By that I mean setting something akin to things we've seen in some Sci-Fi before: something that isn't interested in flesh or maybe not even water, but rather, has biological processes dependent upon it consuming something like iron, or copper, etc. or involving acidic liquids instead of H2O (if such a chemistries are even possible).And before that even becomes an issue, it would have to be a tough mofo to survive unharmed the return journey unprotected from the rigors of interplanetary space.&nbsp; Now, we know there are earth critters called tardigrades (water bears) that have done that...but AFAIK, not for the periods of time involved in the Mars-Earth trip.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Dannyalcatraz, post: 6851297, member: 19675"] The biggest risk of "alien contagion" isn't to actual humans in the form of a "Rigelian Fever" or "Space Herpes", but rather to our machinery in the form of a truly extremely alien biology. Something on the other end of the biological bell curve, an extremophile as compared to the typical terrestrial critter. By that I mean setting something akin to things we've seen in some Sci-Fi before: something that isn't interested in flesh or maybe not even water, but rather, has biological processes dependent upon it consuming something like iron, or copper, etc. or involving acidic liquids instead of H2O (if such a chemistries are even possible). And before that even becomes an issue, it would have to be a tough mofo to survive unharmed the return journey unprotected from the rigors of interplanetary space. Now, we know there are earth critters called tardigrades (water bears) that have done that...but AFAIK, not for the periods of time involved in the Mars-Earth trip. [/QUOTE]

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