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
It will help to explain my background so you can see why it is that I was already familiar with the planetary protection literature on a Mars sample return mission. When I heard about NASA's invitation for public comments I was in the middle of working on this paper on their very mission, which I'd been working on part time for several years
I uploaded the first version of this preprint in 2021, The basic idea of resolving issues with quarantine by returning samples to a miniature life detection lab above GEO goes back at least to an Op Ed. I published in February 2016: How To Keep Earth Safe - Samples From Mars Sterilized Or Returned To Above Geostationary Orbit - Op Ed - I'd been working on the idea before then and I elaborate on it in my online book (OK to Touch Mars? Europa? Enceladus? Or a Tale of Missteps) in the section (If likely to be of greater astrobiological interest - return samples to above GEO), first uploaded in early January 2017.
My preprint was going to be the basis for my first astrobiology papers. It was too long to submit in one paper but I planned to submit sections from it in the journals when it was finished.
I thought I'd do papers on
I also worked on a more general paper on biosphere collisions which covered the Mars sample return mission as part of it. Again not yet submitted anywhere:
I've also got a preprint related to the Fermi paradox, a sustainability solution following Sagan's approach, combined with planetary protection extended to galaxy protection, which as far as I know hasn't yet been used as a solution for the Fermi paradox. It's here:
It reasons that our universe is exactly what you'd expect if aliens start with planetary protection for their home planet, then their star system and then for the galaxy and realize they have to colonize a galaxy sustaiinably for their own protection as well as out of respect for biodiversity of the galaxy. I reason that this is how alien civilizations would likely mature. They would have the ability to have a major impact but they choose not to, just as we have the ability to use all the wood in the Amazon rainforest until it's gone - but choose not to and are moving to a sustainable future . This would explain why we see no large scale structures or radically altered galaxies anywhere - it would predict a minimal impact on the galaxy and mean they are hard to spot.
While any extraterrestrials that don't find a sustainable approach respecting biodiversity - and planetary protection - likely meet various major issues that prevent them spreading in space until eventually they do develop those capabilities - or else of course that they are unadventurous, -and not expansive. Many terrestrial animals are specialized., An extra -terrestrial civilization of rainforest frogs, say, might have little or no interest in trying to colonize a galaxy so long as their preferred habitat is secure. This is based on the sustainability solutions which go back to Carl Sagan's work on the Fermi paradox. It adds galaxy protection (including protecting themselves from their descendants)and planetary protection as an extra motive for sustainability.
So, all my preprints are on planetary protection in one way or another. I’ve been researching on the topic of planetary protection for some years now but not yet submitted any of these preprints for publication though an astrobiologist friend encouraged me to do so at some point.
I am not associated with any institution. I trained as a mathematician. After that I worked as a self employed software developer selling my own software over the internet and I am now retired.
However I wrote blog posts and I did answers on the Q/A site Quora which lead to some interest amongst astrobiologists. This lead to me being invited to a small astrobiology conference in Oxford in 2015 ("Super Positive" Outcomes For Search for Life In Enceladus and Europa Oceans - Robert Walker). Also independently, an astrobiologist friend suggested I write an astrobiology paper for publication. That's when I started work on those various preprints.
My main strength in this topic is interdisciplinary. I can bring together results from the very wide range of disciplines relevant to planetary protection and sometimes find new connections between them, for instance the work on the issues with lab leaks and quarantine for samples from a potentially alien biosphere is based on bringing together materials from public health experts, the history of the Apollo mission, synthetic biology (for mirror life) and many other disciplines. My training is in maths with a first class honours degree from York University in the 1970s, and I studied for a second undergraduate degree in philosophy also in the 1970s and did postgraduate study in the foundations of maths at Oxford under Robin Gandy in the 1980s and have kept a keen interest in science, following the latest developments in science, astronomy and space exploration for half a century.
More recently I've been doing voluntary work as a fact checker to help scared people over the internet and this involves reading many scientific papers every week in order to help them by explaining what the papers are about to them - e.g. the IPCC reports and so on. I think this contributes to a broad view on the topic and they often ask me challenging questions about the papers I need to explain to them. Also it's not just me, we now have many fact checkers in the group and the others often spot mistakes in what I do so I get constant feedback - I think this helps with maintaining academic rigour in my work.
They also often worry about legal cases - like Roe v. Wade and internet law on section 230, so I need to look at legal studies too. I find that I can help them understand what the legal experts are saying - though not trained in law I am trained in logic, the very rigorous logic used in analysing the foundations of maths in a way few even mathematicians are able to do (e.g. not many know that Euclid's axioms of geometry are incomplete, for instance he didn't include the axiom that if a line enters a triangle it has to exit it by one of the other sides or a vertex, but that doesn't follow from the other axioms).
I think this background of mathematical rigour and needing to read commentary by legal experts on many legal cases a year helped with understanding the NEPA requirements on an EIS and what NASA is required to do and didn't do such as maintain scientific integrity etc.
This is the original preprint I did about the NASA draft EIS. I drafted this out while the second round of public comments was in progress.
I wrote it for the academic rigour of this format, and so that it will be easy for anyone who wants to check anything I said to follow up the cites, as for a published paper.
NASA didn't respond in any way and NEPA commented on the last day of public comments saying all their concerns have been addressed.
The US Environmental Protection Agency posted a letter to the public comments page on the last day of the public comments period, December 7 th which doesn’t mention the many significant issues I or anyone else raised with the draft
(Comment Submitted by the United States Environmental Protection Agency, December 7 th, 2022)
After that I was originally going to write a short paper for publication, and I drafted it in January 2023. It was going to have a couple of examples, mirror life and a fungi - much like the open letter. But as I started work on it I realized that I needed to do a literature survey first.
The 2009 Mars sample return study was just too out of date, at 14 years old. The 2012 ESF study was a decade out of date and it focused rather narrowly on the size limits.
So I did a literature survey. I've been prioritizing this and working on it half time. It took me five months to complete. Most of this time was for the literature survey, though I also cover many other topics in the preprint.
The preprint is now 145, 000 words long not including the contents list, supplementary data and references.
However it is organized to be easy to navigate and with titles as mini abstracts also click to next section links throughout.
As I found out more about the history - that NASA aren't even listening to the Space Studies Board and closed down the interagency panel and planetary prtoection office - it became clear that publishing papers in any form is pointless at this stage (as well as taking too long)
My original plan was to publish a paper, with the idea that NASA might pay more attention - or if not them - others - though there have been many papers they ignored. But the vivid scenarios might help.
At this point I realized, there is no way that I would be able to finish a paper before the EIS is published.
Also - I had learnt more about the history behind NASA's draft EIS. If NASA aren't listening to the reports of the Space Studies Board or to their own former planetary protection officers, what good would a paper do? They have written many papers and reports that NASA is ignoring.
Also the main thing I have going for me is that I have legal standing under NEPA. So NASA are actually legally required to listen to me, even though they are not legally required to listen to the Space Studies Board or their own former planetary protection officers. It's a strange situation to be in.
So I wrote the open letter to NASA.
I may do a paper later, but right now, I don't think NASA will pay attention to papers. So it is for later if there is a change on their part or if there is interest in getting it published at the time, and it would be helpful to do so.
But for now my main priority is to try to find a way to help NASA go back on track to a more positive future.
More on my background.
I also have a blog on Science 2.0 where I write blog posts on many topics and
have often blogged about planetary protection in the past.
For my comments on the draft EIS:
Later updated with:
It also has my academic analysis of the EIS as an attachment - though I continued to work on it since then so it is better to use the latest version of it from the OSF preprint server.
For some of my blog posts at Science 2.0 on this topic of protection of Earth and Mars
for a Mars sample return:
· And here is my free self-published online book on planetary protection where I expand on many of these themes.
I was invited to do a presentation for a small astrobiology conference in Oxford in summer 2015,
Here is my bio:
“ Robert has had a long term special interest in astronomy, and space science since the 1970s, and most of these blog posts currently are about Mars and space exploration. He is the programmer for for Tune Smithy, Bounce Metronome, Virtual flower, Lissajous 3D, and Activity Timer.
Robert trained as a mathematician originally and received a high first class honours degree in maths. Went on to study philosophy (second undergraduate degree completed with two years study instead of three), then to do post graduate research into set theory and foundations of mathematics. He then got involved in programming music after he invented a particular type of fractal tune based on self similar sloth canon sequences.”
My presentation for that conference is here
Video: "Super Positive" Outcomes For Search for Life In Enceladus and Europa Oceans - Robert Walker
My reasoning there is that though there isn’t any risk of harm to Earth from forward contamination of those oceans, that there is a risk of loss of hugely positive potential, like treasure chests in our solar system that we risk losing. I also reason that these oceans uncontaminated are of huge positive value if they have only prebiotic chemistry too. Take for example the likely hydrothermal vents in the floors of Enceladus ocean. We could find out what happens to prebiotic chemistry after hundreds of millions or billions of years without the presence of life. Do we find protocells, or Oswald crystals, or naked DNA or any of the other suggestions for how life started? It’s the same for Mars. My reasoning is that we need a far higher than 1 in a million chance of forward contamination given how valuable what we find might be.
I prepared a second presentation for the same conference, on sample return missions. However, not surprisingly, I had only the one slot and the super positive presentation is the one I gave.
However the sample return mission presentation is the one I decided to work up into a paper eventually.
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