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dulletin July '2, 1959

Memorandum:
Yo: Westex
From: J. Lederberg

NEXT KEETING The main purpose of this circular §s to remind you of our planned
meeting to be held at Stanford about September Y2e . %¥ there are some
dates In that vicinity that would be Inconvenient please let me know, Davies
will mot be back unti! about Sept. 8; the Stanford Medical Center will have
fts formal dedication Sept. 17 - 18.

 

POSITION PAPER
‘The main item of business for Westex ~ hk Is the edoption of a draft of a
"position paper" of the Academy. This will be reviewed by tne Board In
October to be promulgated as a formal statement of goals and cautions —
on behalf of the Academy. & will be preparing a draft to cireulate
to you before the meeting -~ this will be based on our previous discussions.
Please write me any thoughts or after-thoughts that should be Ip the
circular, particularly as they may go beyond what is already in the
previous bulletins. Carl Sagan fs at Berkeley for the summer
(e/o Leuschner Observatory) and will be wréiing a technical résumé on
planetary enviconments as an appendix to this paper.

CONTINUED SUPPORT The Space Science Board of the HAS has expressed [ts
vigorous appreciation of the work Westex has been doing and wilt
give [ts support for whatever further consultative work we would care -
to do, including such further meetings as we hold. it ts not an
operating agency but St can, and will, back experimental projects
that may be submitted to NASA, NSF, ete., elther directly or through
Westex. WASA Js just starting tts shop for bloiogical projects but
it Is soliciting them aow. So if any of you have some ideas you want
to implement either send them in directly or bring them up for discussion
at Westex-k or both.

DECONTAMINATION A technical committee on decontaminatjon met at Stanford
on July 8. it Included representatives from NAS, NASA, JPL, General
Electle Co., and Fort Detrick (Ch. Phillips). §t went over particular
aspects of treatment of the third Stage and paytead. Ethylene oxide
is far and away the mest promising approach; it may be necessary to
use other methods (heat, radiation, stertie assembly?) for seme -
special items that are hermetically sealed. Fort Detrick Is wilting
to do tha developmental and contro! work: the cenmittee fs forwarding
a strong recommendation that Detrick be awarded a contract te do the
job. if this is done | think we need no longer spend too much time
on this problem and can concentrate on positive objectives.

 

TOLERANCES A knotty problem that Davies has to bring up is our quantitative
Standards for performance in sterile probes. What is an acceptable
upper tevel of mathematical expectation of the numbers of viable spores
deposited on a pl enct?

This will be a probability product of the Initial contamination toad,
the pre-flight sterilization procedure, the increment during atmospheric
flight, losses during free flight, atmossheric reentry apd impact, and
probability of successful mission. i have suggested 10 ~ as an upper
level to alm at -> in the present state of design, perhaps only 10 “of
this need represent the inittal sterility of the probe. Howaver, as

“mere successful, softer landings are progranmed, the initial decontamination
Westex - 3¢ ~2-

BACK

will also have to be improved. Perhaps this tolerance is not
cautious enough -- if, in due course, 10° flights are made we would
have established a risk of 10°? of a planetary infection. But before
then we should know enough more to make a better judgment, What are
your thoughts?

CONTAMINATION it will be some time, but ultimately space craft

Re ANNI eT At ER AONE

may be recovered on earth after having made at least an atmospheric
entry at another planet. Can we assess the acceptable tolerance for
the risk of a "contamination of the earth. Should this be 10 ~, 10 pg eeel
Against such a tolerance, how would we match the a prior! likelihood of
a deleterious effect of back-contamination? Perhaps even more than in
the fssue of planetary infection we have to compute expectations by
taking a limit product that amounts tecos 0. However, it is easter

to insist on defending the earth than other planets. There will be
some ifme before this issue has to be decided, but we should start

some imaginative thinking on the posstbie consequences of re-infection.
Human disease per se Is (In my opinion) the least likely but far

From the only possibility.

PROBE The mission discussed at cur fast session has been cancelled

PON OO

for the time being. As i understand ft the projected power requirements
for guidance and stabilization left too little margin for communications
and a useful experiment. One consolation ts the time this givas to
perfect the experiments. The next missions are tikely to be luvar

hits er grazes with the aim of a close-up picture.

ORGANIZATION This Is always puzzling. Enclosed is a reference to the

 

Bioastronautics Comuittee, of which Calvin Is a mamber. 3 do not

know what Is the outcome if any of discussions on its relationships

te other groups. The enclosure indicates the special relationship of
the Committee to the military and to the man-In-space programs.

The Space Science Board of the NAS is a successor to the #GY committee.
tt has been advisory mainly to NASA and in the early formulation of
general policy im space science. As an organ of the NAS the Board

seeks to express the consesus of sclentific Judgment. The chairman

of the Space Scieace Board is Lloyd Berkner; appointments to it are made
by Detlev Bronk as president of the Academy.

the role of exoblolegy in the space program is erystallizing;
it can now be more explicitly represented by virtue of my own recent
appointment to the Board. Westex has been de facto one of the sub~
committees of the Board; it should perhaps be more formally recognized as
such, a5 should come about without difficulty.

OTHER NEWS Davies is presenting a paper on decontamination of probes at

the international Astronautics Congress in Londen early in September.
Some members of Westex have been coopted to Calvin's group of the
Bioastronautics subcommittee. There is a meeting scheduled at Woods
Hole for the week of the 13th. | hope we may have a report on this
either by circular or at Westex-4. The overlapping membership should
facilitate interchange of information and tdeas.