DRAFT: Open letter to NASA | Response to final PEIS | Fails NEPA requirements | Main points in open letter in more depth | Finding an inspiring future | Executive summary of preprint | Low risk like house fires and smoke detectors | About me | DRAFT: Endorsements by experts | Why this needs an open letter with endorsements | Call to NASA to defer or withdraw EIS | Letters | BOOK: Preprint to submit to academic publishers

Author: Robert Walker, contact email robert@robertinventor.com

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Letters to experts in various disciplines

I'm writing many letters to various experts and felt it might help to do those as open letters here too, which I can refer to. As I do these letters I will add them to this list:

• Dear planetary protection expert
  - NASA's final Environmental Impact Statement for the samples it plans to return from Mars in the 2030s
  - depends centrally on four invalid arguments
  - only previously found in a non peer reviewed op ed by Robert Zubrin that
  - three planetary protection experts firmly rebutted in 2000
  - not based on new scientific evidence, just because
  - they closed down the planetary protection office
  - their centrally important Mars meteorite argument is rebutted on page 5 of its main cite to the National Academy of Sciences
  - and they don't alert the reader to this inconsistency
  - please endorse that these arguments are not valid
  - this EIS fails basic scientific integrity
  - and this EIS is not ready to be finalized
   
• Dear public health expert
  - NASA's final Environmental Impact Statement for the samples it plans to return from Mars in the 2030s
  - assumes that a HEPA filter can comply with the European Space Foundation requirement
  - to contain 100% of particles larger than 0.05 microns to contain ultramicrobacteria
  - and assumes we can contain any Martian organism or pathogen
  - using standard methods for a BSL-4
  - assumes standard precautions for a lab leak
  - which would need quarantine of technicians to work for
  - unknown disease of novel genera, domains or even novel biology
  - not aware of lifelong symptomless carriers like Typhoid Mary
  - or diseases with long latency periods like Leprosy
  - or pathogens that are harmless in most microbiomes but deadly in some
  - like Aspergillus fumigatus
  - or the potential for alien life such as life based on mirror organics
  - to set up home in the human microbiome which can't be sterilized without killing us
  - argues that martian pathogens can't harm us arguing
  - that human diseases have to co-evolve with humans or other complex hosts
  - not aware of exceptions like tetanus and Aspergillus fumigatus
  - please endorse that this EIS is not ready to be finalized on 8th July  
   
• Dear expert
  - looking for a Carl Sagan
  - who cares deeply about planetary protection

If ready to endorse please visit the endorsements page

(Video: Endorsements by experts of statements about major issues with NASA's Sample Return MIssion EIS)

The endorsements page is here:

Endorsements by experts of statements which raise major issues
- with NASA's plans to return samples from Mars in the early 2030s
- and suggest a reasonable alternative to resolve those issues
- also endorsements to support the Space Studies Board
- when they highlight NASA's need for external peer review for matters beyond their own sphere of excellence

and sign the call to NASA to defer or withdraw their final PEIS

Call to NASA by experts in relevant disciplines
- to defer finalizing your Environmental Impact Statement for a Mars Sample Return mission
- or to withdraw your EIS

Reason for doing these as open letters

A longer letter is easier to read as a web page and this will save copy / paste between emails.

It also makes it easier for anyone to share the open letter with others in their specialty.

Also it means I can include videos, collapsed sections.

Also by saving them to this website, the letters automatically have the contents list when you hover the mouse over the left margin and skip to next header links and the top and bottom navigation to the other pages on the site.

Then I can link my personal email to you to the open letter, and add a short personalized message to each email.

 

DRAFT: Open letter to NASA | Response to final PEIS | Fails NEPA requirements | Main points in open letter in more depth | Finding an inspiring future | Executive summary of preprint | Low risk like house fires and smoke detectors | About me | DRAFT: Endorsements by experts | Why this needs an open letter with endorsement | Call to NASA to defer or withdraw EIS | Letters | BOOK: Preprint to submit to academic publishers

Author: Robert Walker, contact email robert@robertinventor.com