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Are We Bringing Our Germs to Mars?

Star Trek fans know it as the Prime Directive:that there should be no interference with the internal affairs of other civilizations.(Given the frequency with which Captains Kirk,Picard,et. al.,violate it,however,the Prime Directive seems more like a Prime Suggestion.) Since human beings have yet to explore very far beyond Earth,pondering an interplanetary non-interference policy of our own may seem a little premature — at least until we've mastered warp drives and phasers.But in fact such a directive already exists in some form — the international Outer Space Treaty of 1967,which governs the legal framework for activities in space.Best known for banning governments from putting nuclear weapons in orbit,the treaty also requires spacefaring nations to avoid "harmful contamination" of other worlds while exploring the solar system.Human beings have yet to step foot on other planets,so the risk today comes from bacteria that can hitch a ride on unmanned spacecraft like NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander,which arrived on the red planet's surface last May