This is a linkpost for https://eukaryotewritesblog.com/2024/01/06/defending-against-hypothetical-moon-life-during-apollo-11/

[Header image: Photo of the lunar lander taken during Apollo 11.]

In 1969, after successfully bringing men back from landing on the moon, the astronauts, spacecraft, and all the samples from the moon surface were quarantined for 21 days. This was to account for the possibility that they were carrying hostile moon germs. Once the quarantine was up and the astronauts were not sick, and extensive biological testing on them and the samples showed no signs of infection or unexpected life, the astronauts were released.

We know now that the moon is sterile. We didn’t always know this. That was one of the things we hoped to find out from the Apollo 11 program, which was the first time not only that people would visit another celestial body, but that material another celestial body would be brought back in a relatively pristine fashion to [...]

---

Outline:

(02:05) Terms

(03:48) How back contamination risks became a concern

(04:07) Forward contamination and the space race

(05:37) Context: Biological science in the US

(07:11) Exobiology and the origin of life

(08:39) Biological Weapons

(11:20) Back to establishing an early history of the idea

(13:34) What about the other way?

(17:21) Putting a man on the moon

(19:32) A secret executive order

(24:58) The idea through NASA and the federal government

(25:02) NASA plans for the LRL

(25:45) King and Flory plan for a receiving laboratory

(26:27) The 1964 “Potential Hazards of Back Contamination from the Planets” Conference

(27:33) The Chao Committee

(29:07) The Hess Committee

(30:15) The Interagency Committee on Back Contamination

(31:36) Convincing Congress to fund the Lunar Receiving Laboratory

(36:08) Establishing a strategy

(38:35) The Baylor Protocol

(44:33) Conflict points

(45:51) Implementation

(46:55) Sidenote on cost

(47:12) The LRL

(47:42) Problems

(48:47) Procedures

(48:54) On the moon

(49:24) Katabasis

(51:13) At the LRL

(51:16) People

(51:48) The command module

(52:45) Samples

(54:49) Outbound materials

(55:10) Contingencies

(55:54) Conclusions

(55:57) Major takeaways

(59:12) If there had been a threat, would mitigation efforts have worked?

(01:00:31) What happened, and what about back contamination now?

(01:02:25) Acknowledgements

(01:02:36) Thanks for reading!

The original text contained 7 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

---

First published:
January 7th, 2024

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/dedyJwQXZxakJLuDF/defending-against-hypothetical-moon-life-during-apollo-11

Linkpost URL:
https://eukaryotewritesblog.com/2024/01/06/defending-against-hypothetical-moon-life-during-apollo-11/

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “Defending against hypothetical moon life during Apollo 11” by eukaryote

LessWrong (30+ Karma)