Astrobiology Wiki:New editors
New editors, please add a new section here briefly introducing yourself to other editors here.
Robert Walker
Hi, I founded this wiki after I got blocked as an editor in Wikipedia. I trained as a mathematician and have a long term interest in astronomy and space missions, and many related areas of science including of course astrobiology. A few years back I developed an interest in planetary protection for robotic and human missions to Mars and other planets in our solar system. I've been blogging about this for some time on my blog on Science 2.0 and quora, and wrote a book Touch Mars? Europa? Enceladus? Or a Tale of Missteps?. For several years I used to edit Wikipedia in various areas including planetary protection, and astrobiology. Now that I've been blocked, I plan to work on new wikis instead. This is one of them.
My own views on the planetary protection debate are that we should send humans to the Moon first, where we can learn about sustainability in space, and about effects of forwards contamination in a place where the effects are limited and comparatively easy to contain. I think we should explore Mars from orbit and do a thorough astrobiological survey before we consider whether to send humans to the surface, and what precautions to take. I think it is premature to try to do this at a point where we have to take precautions for any concievable astrobiology before we know what is there. I think we should work towards 100% sterile rovers for astrobioloogy and think this is feasible using the technology being developed for Venus surface missions, with heat sterilizaation to 300 °C which is hot enough to destroy all amino acids. Or some other method of sterilization. Onoce we can achieve that we can send astrobiological rovers and instruments anywhere, even to the most vulnerable habitats, without any concerns of contamination.
I express views like this in my blog, but not in the encylcopedia. So far I have not tried to get a paper published on my own views butu am working on one right now which I hope some deay to submit to the astrobiological journals. You can find out a bit more about me on my user page. Robertinventor (talk) 00:14, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
Robertinventor (talk) 00:14, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
