Knowledge Tree
Brent Sherwood
Facts (17)
Sources
Putting the Ethics into Planetary Protection | News | Astrobiology astrobiology.nasa.gov Aug 13, 2018 17 facts
claimBrent Sherwood notes that decisions regarding planetary protection ethics may face challenges similar to particle accelerator siting, where courts relegated decisions to the jurisdictions where facilities were built.
perspectiveBrent Sherwood, Adrian Ponce, and Michael Waltemathe argue for a re-evaluation of planetary protection protocols to address ethical concerns regarding the potential contamination of extraterrestrial worlds with terrestrial microbes.
claimSherwood asserts that the rapid growth in the understanding of biology and astrobiology is outpacing the evolution of planetary protection policies.
quoteBrent Sherwood stated: “Going back to the precedent of the particle accelerators, the decisions were relegated by the courts to the jurisdictions in which the facilities were built.”
quoteBrent Sherwood stated: “There would be a subsystem inside the spacecraft that, when the mission is over, will incinerate the innards, which are the parts of the spacecraft that we would be unable to be sterilize before launch.”
quoteSherwood stated, "Because these are multi-decade endeavors in planetary science, the people who make the policy decisions today won’t even be around when the missions occur, but the people who will inherit the societal consequences and on whose conscience it will weigh if we stumble or make a mistake aren’t even at the table yet. Who speaks for them?"
perspectiveSherwood and his co-authors advocate for the inclusion of the public and non-technical experts in discussions regarding the risks of contaminating extraterrestrial environments with terrestrial microbes.
quoteBrent Sherwood, Program Manager for Solar System science mission formulation at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, stated: “What motivated us was what I call the pedigree and the provenance of the 1-in-10,000 number.”
perspectiveSherwood argues that scientific dilemmas with ethical implications should be open for global public debate, similar to how discussions regarding genetically modified foods and artificial intelligence have been handled.
procedureBrent Sherwood proposes a two-stage mechanism for addressing ethical considerations in planetary protection: first, communicating risks, limitations, and the 1-in-10,000 probability metric to the public; second, deciding on available options.
perspectiveSherwood asserts that because the public might care about potential interference with alien ecosystems, it is necessary to engage in public discussion to determine the extent of that concern, even if the global public ultimately does not care.
perspectiveSherwood argues that current planetary protection mechanisms are incomplete and that the processes for determining who holds final decision-making authority need to be established.
quoteSherwood told Astrobiology Magazine, "Part of our motivation is the fear – that’s a strong word, sorry – that having this conversation downstream would be more painful and expensive than having it upstream."
perspectiveSherwood and colleagues argue that current planetary protection studies are becoming outdated due to increasing knowledge about the potential for life on ocean moons, extremophile survivability, and microbial interdependences.
perspectiveSherwood and colleagues argue that the history of forward contamination requirements has been motivated solely by protecting the ability to conduct future science, while failing to address the ethical obligation to protect the biosphere of another world.
claimBrent Sherwood describes a spacecraft subsystem designed to incinerate non-sterilizable internal components after a mission ends to address forward contamination requirements for missions to environments like Europa.
quoteSherwood stated, "The discussion needs to include people who are not technical, it needs to be open and it needs to be ongoing, because there is no such thing as a final answer to any of this."