WASHINGTON – The White House issued a national strategy for protecting the planet on December 30, setting out new assessments to prevent terrestrial pollution from other worlds and vice versa.
The National Strategy for Planetary Protection, developed by an intergroup working group chaired by the National Space Council and Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), sets out the work to be done next year to protect the planetary policy, taking into account both scientific advances as well as growing private capabilities in space exploration.
The strategy is designed to implement part of the updated National Space Policy, released on December 9, which calls on OSTP in collaboration with NASA and other agencies to develop new guidelines for protecting the planet “working with scientists,” commercial and international partners, for the appropriate protection of planetary bodies and the earth against harmful biological pollution. ”
“Current and future missions to Mars and other destinations require a strategy to support a safe, sustainable and predictable Earth and space environment,” Scott Pace, executive secretary of the National Space Council, said in a statement. “By setting the goals for the implementation of the direction of the National Space Policy in 2020 regarding planetary protection, the American leadership continues in scientific discovery, human exploration and space activities in the private sector.”
The strategy for planetary protection has three broad objectives. One is to draw up a “risk assessment and science-based guidelines” for reducing what is known as ‘forward contamination’ or contamination of other worlds by earthly life. It also directs an assessment of the role of planetary protection in the government’s payroll review process for private missions.
A second goal is to avoid ‘backward pollution’ or potential pollution of the earth by any extraterrestrial life. The strategy commands the agencies to develop different frameworks for assessing the risks of sample orders and other sources of back-up pollution, as well as an approval framework for such orders and procedures for handling material returning safely from outside the Earth.
A third goal is to capture the view of the private sector on planetary protection issues, given the growing capabilities and interest by companies to fly missions to other worlds, especially Mars. The purpose includes government work to develop guidelines for authorization and continued oversight of private sector missions to destinations with implications for planetary protection.
The strategy does not contain any new policies, but gives an outline of the work on the following issues to be done over the next year. “It really is a work plan,” an administration official said. “It’s a strategy that sets out work that will be done over the next nine months to a year.”
Planetary protection has traditionally been a problem for NASA. The agency is working to update its own planetary protection policy, based on recommendations made by an independent review board last year. In July, NASA announced that it was issuing new interim guidelines to reclassify both most of the moon into a lower category that has no planetary protection requirements, as well as to study how to make planetary protection guidelines compatible with future human missions to Mars. .
“We are very good at what NASA has done, but the problem is that the NASA rules and interim regulations do not really apply to the private sector,” the administration said. The strategy follows what the official described as a “light touch” approach to any planetary protection regulations for private missions. “We try to find ways for people to continue, but to do it safely.”
The strategy also seeks to leverage the expertise of other agencies. The inter-agency working group included several departments in the cabinet, from Agriculture and Health and Human Services to Trade and State. It also included the Centers for Disease Control, Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Aviation Administration, among others.
Many of them were brought in to support work on backward pollution. “This is a wonderful opportunity to gather departments and agencies that may not have historically worked on this,” said an administration official, “but is very excited to do so now.”
‘There’s really no reason for the space guys to reinvent the wheel. There is a lot of good expertise there, ”an official added.
The planet’s protection strategy is part of an increase in White House space policy activity by the Trump administration in recent weeks. In addition to the updated National Space Policy, the White House issued a Spatial Nuclear Strategy on 16 December setting out priorities for the development of nuclear and propulsion capabilities and related policy issues.