The Quarantine and Certification of Martian Samples (2002) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix B A History of the Lunar Receiving Laboratory
Appendix B A History of the Lunar Receiving Laboratory
Pages 70-80
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From page 70... ...
February 1964 Elements of MSC begin occupying their newly constructed center at Clear Lake City, Texas. February 25, 1964 An internal MSC memorandum is sent from the Assistant Chief for Space Environment to the Director of Engineering and Development in which the need for a central facility to accept and handle lunar samples is first identified.
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From page 71... ...
of the National Research Council convenes a conference of representatives from the Public Health Service, the Department of Agriculture, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Academy of Sciences, and NASA to assess the back-contamination problem. The conference concludes that the existence of life on the Moon cannot be precluded, and it recommends that astronauts, spacecraft, and lunar materials should be received into an isolation unit; the astronauts should be held in rigid quarantine for at least three weeks; and preliminary examination of the samples should be conducted behind "absolute biological barriers, under rigid bacterial and chemical isolation."8 October 1964 NASA Headquarters challenges the scale of the sample-handling facility MSC has proposed.
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From page 72... ...
June 1965 MSC management establishes a technical working committee for preliminary and final engineering design studies of LRL.13 July 1965 NASA Headquarters organizes a series of disciplinary working groups, which meet in Falmouth, Massachusetts, for the NASA Lunar Exploration and Science Summer Conference. Plans are made for soliciting and screening proposals by outside investigators.
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From page 73... ...
It includes representatives from the Department of Agriculture, Department of the Interior, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, National Academy of Sciences, and NASA.23 February 24, 1966 The House Subcommittee on Manned Space Flight rejects NASA's request for $9.1 million for the Lunar Receiving Laboratory. March 9, 1966 A NASA Headquarters reorganization moves lunar science from the Manned Space Flight program to OSSA.
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From page 74... ...
Thus it must be considered contaminated; after removal of the astronauts and sample containers, it will be sealed for the duration of the quarantine."29 January 10, 1967 The Science and Applications Directorate is established at MSC.30 January 13, 1967 LRL is placed in the Lunar and Earth Sciences Division at MSC, whose head reports to the director of the Science and Applications Directorate.3 February 1967 ICBC writes a quarantine protocol aimed at consuming 1.2 kg of material, 5% of the nominal sample collection, in testing the reactions of animals and plants to lunar material. The protocol and sample requirement have been simplified by a decision to search not for living organisms in general but instead only for infectious organisms.32 The examinations are to include aerobic and anaerobic culturing; inoculation of plants, eggs, tissue cultures, amphibia, invertebrates, and normal and germ-free animals; and biochemical analyses.33 June 16, 1967 A formal protocol for operation of LRL and quarantining the samples and crew, 547 pages in length, is written by a team of biologists and physicians at Baylor University.34 27Compton, 1989; see footnote 3.
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From page 75... ...
from other nations.43 December 1-2, 1968 The first meeting of LSPET is held. Meetings of LSAPT and LSPET soon come to be held at about 1-month intervals.44 February 23, 1968 At a second meeting of LSAPT, discussion centers on problems associated with the uncompleted vacuum chamber in which returned lunar sample containers are to be opened (Figure B.1~.
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From page 76... ...
One of the guidelines governing procedures states, "The preservation of human life should take precedence over the maintenance of quarantine." Thus if a command module begins to sink during recovery operations, or if a major fire breaks out in the crew quarters of the receiving laboratory, or if a quarantined astronaut suffers a medical emergency that cannot be handled within LRL, the plan is to break quarantine.48 49 October 22 - November 1, 1968 A simulation of the handling and preliminary examination of samples is held. At this time the F-201 vacuum chamber is still inoperable.
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From page 77... ...
LSAPT recommends that sample containers be opened in a chamber filled with an inert gas, such as sterile nitrogen.5i 52 April 4, 1969 NASA Policy Directive 8020.13 formally assigns responsibility for forward contamination to OSSA (meaning that an inventory of Earth organisms transported to the Moon should be maintained) , and for back contamination to OMSF ("certifying to the Administrator that the recommendations and statutory requirements of the regulatory agencies have been fulfilled prior to the release of lunar astronauts or lunar exposed materials from quarantined.
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From page 78... ...
In the end a compromise is reached: The mission plan for Apollo 12 is that one of the two sample return containers will be processed in the F-201 complex; the other, in a nitrogen-filled glove box.57 November 24, 1969 Apollo 12 splashdown. December 2, 1969 During preliminary examination of the Apollo 12 samples a cut glove in the LRL vacuum chamber causes a "spill," sending 11 exposed people to the Crew Reception Area, which is filled to overflowing, for the duration of quarantine.58 (Some personnel who also were exposed to the hypothetical spill evade quarantine by fleeing the area before guards charged with enforcing quarantine rules arrive.)
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From page 79... ...
The cabinets contain purified dry N2 at slightly more than atmospheric pressure, so leakage is outward, protecting the samples but not personnel (if the samples had contained pathogens)
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From page 80... ...
80 February 9, 1971 Apollo 14 splashdown. THE QUARANTINE AND CERTIFICATION OF MARTIAN SAMPLES April 28, 1971 After life-detection experiments on samples from three Apollo missions return negative results, NASA announces that ICBC will no longer require crew or sample quarantine.6~~63 6iKing, 1989; see footnote 1.
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