Sentences with phrase «planetary protection officer»

John Rummel, an astrobiologist at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, and former NASA Planetary Protection Officer, told the room that he doesn't think there has to be a conflict.

NASA has a job opening for a Planetary Protection Officer, or PPO.

«It was clear to everybody that we need more refined technical requirements, not just guidelines,» says Gerhard Kminek, planetary protection officer for the European Space Agency and chair of COSPAR's planetary protection panel, which sets the standards.

says Rummel, who was NASA's planetary protection officer before Conley.

To a planetary protection officer entrusted with keeping deadly life - forms out of Earth's biosphere, doing nothing is the one option that is completely unacceptable.

-- Catharine A. Conley, NASA planetary protection officer

Fortunately, the risk of contaminating the Red Planet is extremely slim, says Catharine Conley, NASA's planetary protection officer, who is charged with ensuring agency projects do not contaminate other solar system bodies.

Today, at a meeting in Washington, D.C., of NASA's planetary science advisory committee, the agency's new planetary protection officer raised the possibility of opening up a few of the planet's most promising regions to more aggressive exploration.

Part of her job as planetary protection officer is to keep Earth safe from alien life.

Stray microbes from Earth could potentially harm not just Martian life, but also resources that human settlers may eventually want, such as aquifers, says John Rummel, who served as NASA's planetary protection officer for more than a decade.

«That's reassuring,» says NASA's Planetary Protection Officer Catharine Conley in Washington, D.C., who is responsible for managing contamination risks.

«What I didn't know at the time,» Conley says, «is the way the position is turned over: The current planetary protection officer finds somebody who's willing to come, brings them in, and then leaves.

Conley left Ames and wound up at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C., invited by Rummel, who was then the planetary protection officer.

But that doesn't change the fact that Cassie Conley, NASA's planetary protection officer, is in charge of protecting Earth from alien invasions.

Conley was appointed planetary protection officer in 2006.

More recently, says John Rummel, a biologist who was NASA's planetary protection officer before Conley, JPL has butted heads with the office over the next big mission, the Mars 2020 rover, which will gather rock samples for later retrieval to Earth.

Several media outlets claimed NASA wanted to hire planetary protection officers to defend Earth from an alien invasion, but the reality is far less glamorous and potentially harmful to the space agency's mission.