It codifies the etiquette for “planetary protection” - preventing earthlings and their emissaries from contaminating their celestial bodies (known as forwards contamination), and arguably more importantly, guarding against the encroachment of alien microbes into the terrestrial biosphere (backwards contamination). The directive is required reading for those who send spacecraft to hunt for extraterrestrial life. This week’s announcement that scientists had found evidence of briny water on Mars will have had many experts reaching for the small print of Nasa Policy Directive 8020.7G.
Fabulous discoveries are often followed by exceedingly dull paperwork, such as the checking and rechecking of data, graphs, statistical analyses and conclusions.
