The power of bird droppings.

Obviously, these NASA engineers have never owned a car that they had to keep outside of the garage or carport.

It should be interesting to see if any trace of them survive re-entry...

This makes me wonder about all forms of science fiction, where spacecraft (by whatever means) fly directly from one planetary surface to another...it seems there would be all kinds of opprotunites for cross-contamination through paths such as this.

Remember the Surveyor moon bug? It was a terrestrial microbe that survived the sterilization procedures applied to the Surveyor 7 moon probe. It was launched into space, landed on the moon, survived on the moon's surface in vacuum for several years. Then it came back to earth on a piece of Surveyor collected by the Apollo 12 astronauts, and began to reproduce in a lab. I don't know what kind of "bug" it was, but I do wonder if its decendants are still around.

I thought Jim Oberg had debunked that, and shown that it was more likely due to post-landing contamination.

Rand's post from sci.space.policy - I guess I am missing something: what does being a democrat have to do with this?

"Not really. It's always seemed that way to me--a mix of good
inside-NASA baseball, and Keith's own interests and quirks. Certainly he misses his beer buddy Shawn O'Keefe, but this doesn't seem like anything different than was happening in the Goldin era. And while I admire Mike's willingness to refuse to kowtow to the moronic press questions about his "feelings," one can see why a Democrat like Keith might find them more upsetting. "

The more I peruse your often irrational anti-Democrat postings - and those of your pal Mark Whittington - the more I am convinced that you guys got beat up by a Democrat on the way home from school as a kid - or suffered some sort of trauma at an early age associated with Democrats - that has left you bitter with regard to people who have different political views than yours. It must suck to be burdened with such bitterness.

"Pal" Mark Whittington?

This must be some strange new definition of the word "Pal" I'm not familiar with....

Keith, I know plenty of rational Democrats. But they all have been hideously embarressed by the shennanigans of some hi-profile (D)politicians and their higher-profile supporters. The continuing "Mother Sheehan" circus, as one example. Mike Moore's "Minutemen" comments for another.

The Democrats are being increasingly seen by those both on the inside and the outside as the party of Moonbattery.

Can you honestly say that this opinion is totally false, however unjust?

Hey Keith, funny you'd bring this talk of Democrats into a discussion of bird droppings.

How appropriate.

Keith, I have some very good friends who are Democrats. That wasn't necessarily a slam at Democrats--just an observation. They generally seem to be more into "feelings" than Republicans and other (like me) non-Democrats. If you think that's a bad thing, I guess you could take it as a dig, but it wasn't necessarily intended that way. It was simply meant to be an possible explanation for your apparent fascination with Mike "Spock" Griffin at NASA Watch.

And I, too, find the notion that Mark is my "pal" amusing.

Oh, and spare me the pop-psychoanalysis. I'm not "bitter." In fact, I find the foibles of many Democrats quite amusing.

Rand, you are clearly oblivious to your problem with people who do not agree with you and the odd assumptions you make about their supposed motivations.

And to the person who seems to feel that as a Democrat I am automatically supportive of nutcases like Cindy Sheehan and Michael Moore, I am sure you have other wild leaps of logic to amuse us with. I can easily trot out a long list of nutcases and impugn all Republicans too.

Rand, you are clearly oblivious to your problem with people who do not agree with you and the odd assumptions you make about their supposed motivations.

This is a little ironic, coming from someone who fantasizes I criticize Democrats because I got beaten up by one. It's certainly no odder than the odd notion that I am "bitter."

I offered a speculation as to why you seem upset by Griffin's lack of feelings. Feel free to correct the record (even though you should have done so over at sci.space.policy, rather than hijacking this post's comments section).

Hate to break the news to you, but I don't fantasize about you Rand.

I'll let you get back to spewing venom on Democrats.

Hate to break the news to you, but I don't fantasize about you Rand.

So you didn't write this?

The more I peruse your often irrational anti-Democrat postings - and those of your pal Mark Whittington - the more I am convinced that you guys got beat up by a Democrat on the way home from school as a kid - or suffered some sort of trauma at an early age associated with Democrats

It's right there, a few comments above.

Looks like a fantasy about me to me. If you didn't write it, you probably want to find out who's been posting here using your name, Keith. Assuming that this is really Keith...

I'll let you get back to spewing venom on Democrats.

Do you have an example of "spewed" "venom," or is this just more fantasies?

Cowing "I can easily trot out a long list of nutcases and impugn all Republicans too."

"Easily"? "Long list"?

You would have to dig deep to find anything approaching the almost daily utterances of BS coming from Dean, Pelosi, Reid, Kerry, Kennedy, along with their willing accomplices in the media and Hollywood. The sanest sounding member of the Democrat party, Joe Lieberman, is about to be kicked out of the party for daring to be sane.

Of course you could go with your little “Weldon thinks Mars is a star” bit, but that was a typical willful misinterpretation on your part more so than any lack of astronomical knowledge on Weldon’s part.

Ahem...back on topic...

So the article quotes someone as saying that the bird droppings will burn up during re-entry.

Well, no sh*t.

"Gentlemen, there will be no fighting in the war room!"

Somebody had to say it.

Of course y'all realize somebody's bound to point to these things as evidence there are birds flying around in outer space.