weer
Rakk Bob-- the meeting was successful enough

to be fun; Hibbs will send you a report and
E will too.

The group felt rather stronger about contami-
nation tinctuding the moon) than @ 1! would

have predicted. However, the suggested proceduge
for sterilization by Et:0 gas should be simple
and effective. For the planetshots, some more
attention should be given to microbiology

in the design stage to minimize inherent contami-
nation and to faciljtate fumigation.

By arndlarge the substance of the preliminary
report I sent you last week was adopted unani-
mously. However, while the moonshots should
be sterilized (and they feasibly can be!) the
tolerable levels of bacteria (before steriliza-
tian) that | quoted may be too stringent, and
10° per missile may be more reasonable than 10.
This goes to show how easy it is to carry heavy
contamination. § think with some care you might
be able to beat that tolerance.

One important and practical suggestion is
the need to verify the effectiveness of steri-
Yization procedures by microblological control.
Fort Detrick can help you a great deal on this
(but don't let the papers learn you have BW in
on the rockets!) Amther useful suggestion Is
to get a resident microblologist at the launch
base so you know something of the local flora
and to help keep an eye open on the whole pro-
ceedings. If you can Interest and detach
Otto Landman from Detrick to do this, it might
work out very well® Aemy Medical (Walter Reed)
also must have some talent in the area-- you
might check with Lou Baron over there .

More to follow.....

wet a

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