[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: starship-design: Planetary Landing



At 14:33 07/06/98 +0100, you wrote:
>Hi Christoph,
>
>>I think possible contamination is another good reason for not landing 
>>the mothership on an (Earth-like) planet.
>
>If contamination is an issue, then I wonder how you could avoid it by
>having shuttles. The shuttles would land in the dirt and take some of it
>with it back to the starship. The researchers too would take some dust with
>them, even when they carried spacesuits.
>

You can avoid contamination relatively "easily" - people set up plenty of
quarantines, clean rooms, bio-hazard rooms etc - you just have a dirty room
which the shuttles land in, make sure it's isolated from the rest of the
ship - keep it in a vacuum too - and have the crew properly washed down etc.

Andrew West