User:Robertinventor/Planetary protection
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Copy of the main space article in case Warren Platts merges it with Interplanetary contamination - if he does that and the wikipedia community supports him in it, I'll stop editing wikipedia on this topic until climate of opinion here changes, and copy this to Science20 and Quora instead.
---
![Thumb image](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b0/Viking_Oven.jpg/640px-Viking_Oven.jpg)
Planetary protection is a guiding principle in the design of an interplanetary mission, aiming to prevent biological contamination of both the target celestial body and the Earth. Planetary protection reflects both the unknown nature of the space environment and the desire of the scientific community to preserve the pristine nature of celestial bodies until they can be studied in detail.[2][3]
There are two types of interplanetary contamination. Forward contamination is the transfer of viable organisms from Earth to another celestial body. A major goal of planetary protection is to preserve the planetary record of natural processes by preventing introduction of Earth-originated life. Back contamination is the transfer of extraterrestrial organisms, if such exist, back to the Earth's biosphere.