Forward Contamination, Microbial Resilience, and the Ethics of Seeding Life Beyond Earth
To the point
James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis describe Earth as a self-regulating system, and this idea raises concerns about contaminating other worlds because microbes can survive and exchange genes, as shown by Lenski’s E. coli work, Cuatro Ciénegas Basin, the human microbiome, and spaceflight effects, guiding cautious policy under UN rules.
