forward contamination

This provides a solution to the backward and forward contamination issues.

A major goal is to preserve the planetary record of natural processes by preventing human-caused microbial introductions, also called forward contamination.

Many other historical Mars missions have crash landed and some of these crashes might have created other possible opportunities for forward contamination.

Interplanetary contamination, also called forward contamination, is the hypothetical contamination of a sterile planetary body by human spacecraft, either deliberate or unintentional.

Even the Viking missions, noted for the care taken to prevent forward contamination of Mars, still weren't sterilized to quite the same levels as modern missions to Mars.

This habitat, if it exists, is particularly relevant for forward contamination of Mars as it is easily accessible from the surface, and widespread, as described in a recent paper (March 2012).

This scenario also raises the possibility of forward contamination of Mars leading to later backward contamination of Earth - that life introduced to Mars by human astronauts could evolve through adaptive radiation into new life hazardous to humans for future visits to Mars and then returned to Earth later.