Biological losses and the quarantine policy for mars

An international committee known as COSPAR has agreed that the probability of a single viable organism aboard any unmanned spacecraft intended for planetary landing should be kept less than 10^–3, in agreement with work by Sagan and Coleman. At present, the U.S.A. is committed to remain consistent with this standard. Using a model which includes both expected losses from failures to collect data and from contamination to analyze the quarantine problem, evidence is given which suggests that the current quarantine requirements may be too strict if their implementation forces a program delay. U.S. policy should be re-examined, keeping more fully in mind both the types and the relative sized of the losses which might be encountered.