re life on mars here is a potentially dumb question what prevents the martian landers themselves from polluting the martian environment with earth based critters is the long trip in cold radiation bathed space enough to completely sterilize the landers i could imagine that a few teeny microbes could manage to get all the way there unharmed and then possibly thrive given the right circumstances gord wait smos systems vancouver design centre uunet jericho gord gord jericho uunet uu net or even some days
