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Old 09-25-2003, 11:35 PM   #2 (permalink)
Astrocloud
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Okay, Okay this one has me rolling on the floor. The symbol next to it is the mime... it "inspires hatred".

Quote:
17. PLANETARY PROTECTION OFFICER

Sounds like a job giving away condoms at high school homecomings—but it's actually much worse. NASA's John Rummel must save the solar system from interplanetary biological contamination, and whether he succeeds or fails, people will hate him for it. Before missions launch to other planets, Rummel enforces a strict regimen of cleanliness to ensure that we don't carry Earth microbes to other solar system bodies—lest we then "discover" strangely familiar life-forms out there. Engineers generally resent having to bake their supersensitive instruments at 111°C (230°F), Rummel says, "so I get to be the heavy." In 10 years, when we return Mars rocks to Earth, he'll be the guy locking the samples in quarantine until he can guarantee they're not crawling with dastardly Martian microbes—essentially an impossible task, given that we have no clue what Mars life might look like. Should the life he can't detect escape and wreak a plague upon humanity, we'll blame him.
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