Forward Contamination
Mars Rover Do you know why the mars rover has “metal tires” instead of rubber ones? When you think about it, “rubber” has all the superior features compared to metal as a tire, fewer vibrations, better grip etc, yet we don’t use it for tires of vehicles on other planetary bodies. The reason is to prevent “forward contamination”. Rubber is composed of long organic molecules. If we use it today as tires for devices where we search life by simply searching organic molecules, we might end up creating contamination that would render all future missions related to searching organic molecules moot....