The Space Review Looks at Critical Partnerships, Critical Reactions and Forward Contamination

Altair on the moon

This week in The Space Review:

Critical partnerships for the future of human space exploration
The size of the challenges associated with human exploration beyond Earth orbit is likely beyond what any single space agency is willing to spend to carry out those missions. Andre Bormanis describes the types of partnerships that are critical to making such exploration possible.

The real message of a controversial statement
NASA found itself embroiled in controversy earlier this month over a comment made by the agency’s administrator in a Middle Eastern television interview. Jeff Foust finds that the real message is not in the administrator’s ill-advised words but in the reaction to them.

Should we care about other planets?
As NASA and other space agencies seek evidence of past or present life on Mars and elsewhere, there’s the risk such exploration could contaminate those worlds. Linda Billings discusses the options to prevent such contamination, including even not exploring them at all.

Review: Carnarvon and Apollo
More than 40 years after Apollo 11, it’s worth remembering that sites around the world helped make that mission, and the ones that preceded and followed it, a success. Jeff Foust reviews a book that examines the role of a little-known tracking station in Australia had on NASA’s early spaceflights and the impact it had on its host town.