back to article Are you a clean freak? Are you a keen geek? Do you think space is neat?

Here’s a job title you can dazzle people with at boring dinner parties: Planetary Protection Officer. NASA is looking for someone to prevent germs from being exchanged between Earth and the Moons, comets, asteroids, and planets in our Solar System during space missions. “Planetary protection is concerned with the avoidance of …

  1. Your alien overlord - fear me

    If we send people to Mars (to live), surely that's biological contamination at it's worst?

    And if it wasn't a US only job, I'd recommend Barry Scott !!

    1. Solarflare

      "BANG! And the germs are gone!"

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
        Mushroom

        ""BANG! And the germs are gone!"

        You forgot the icon!

    2. Francis Boyle Silver badge

      Relax,

      the thing about sending Trump is a joke.

  2. lglethal Silver badge
    Happy

    Having worked with a NASA PPO on a Project once, they were extremely professional. The Job seems to basically revolve around teaching everyone else why its so important to clean everything multiple times, doing a brain frying amount of statistics and being exceptionally knowledgable about cleaning prodcedures and their effects on various materials.

    They were a huge assistance to us on a mars Project I worked on. Still the amount of Statistical Analysis that they have to do is something i would NOT want to wish on anyone... ;)

  3. jake Silver badge

    Good luck with that.

    I have it on good authority that virtually every bit of kit that goes into space has the fingerprints of some of the hardware folks included "under the lid". On purpose.

    1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

      Re: Good luck with that.

      Well, you've got a point.

  4. Farnet

    Hmmm managing an international agreement, but only Yanks can apply.....

    Can I smell some bias here....

    1. lglethal Silver badge
      Facepalm

      ESA also has a Planetary Protection Office (in Noorwijk), and so do the Japanese. I assume the Russians, the Chinese and the Indians do too.

      This is a NASA specific position, so why are you surprised it's only for yanks?

      1. Farnet

        If that is the case then fair enough.

        But the item didn't mention that, otherwise I'm sure I would have picked it up, in fact it made it sound like NASA was running the entire show.

  5. Arthur the cat Silver badge

    Sounds like a job for

    Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper. A man much concerned with purity of essence.

  6. Chris G

    What it boils down to

    Is a pair of shoulder length veterinary gloves and a disinfectant spray for the routine work and for the serious PPO an equivalent to a Vor'cha class warship for things bigger than bacteria.

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