Quarantine for Moon Travelers

In all probability, U.S. astronauts will not be returning from the moon before 1970, but the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is getting ready to welcome them back all the same. As the spacecraft is hoisted aboard the recovery carrier, bands will strike up, sailors will cheer, and a worldwide television audience will watch. But the viewing public will see precious little of the heroes of the occasion, the astronauts themselves. They will be whisked into isolation at an $8,100,000 Lunar Receiving Laboratory that NASA is just completing in Houston. There they will remain under strict quarantine for weeks.

The nagging fear behind this cautious treatment is that alien organisms might hitch a ride aboard the spacecraft, in the bodies of the astronauts or in moon rocks that they will carry back. Such bugs, against which man has developed no immunity or medicines, could conceivably cause a catastrophic plague on earth. "We know that we're dealing with a low-probability risk and that no one really expects life to be found on the moon," says NASA's Dr. Walter W. Kemmerer Jr. "Yet the best way to preserve life is to freeze it and dry it."

Plastic tunnels. To guard against moon viruses and bacteria, NASA will not allow the astronauts to open the Apollo hatch until a plastic tunnel has been extended to the spacecraft from a 35-ft., hermetically sealed van placed near by on the carrier deck. Carrying 50 Ibs. of lunar rock and soil samples in steel vacuum cases, they will walk through the tunnel into the van. There, in the company of a doctor and an engineer, they will be completely isolated from the outside world. When the carrier reaches a U.S. port, the van will be flown intact to the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston. Only then will NASA allow the space travelers to emerge through another plastic tunnel into a permanent, larger and more complex version of the van: the Lunar Receiving Laboratory.

For the remainder of a three-week quarantine period, the astronauts and a dozen doctors, engineers, technicians and a cook will live in the lab's sealed quarters--including bedrooms, a kitchen stocked with frozen food, a small gym, and medical quarters with even a small operating room. But the astronauts will have no doubt that they are home: for crew-quarters decor, NASA has chosen Early American-style furniture by Sears, Roebuck.

Of Mice & Men. Scientists chosen to examine the lunar samples will have more freedom. Protected by an ingenious "biological barrier"--a system of vacuum chambers, pneumatic transfer tubes, decontamination locks and "glove boxes"--they will be able to enter and leave their area of the LRL during the quarantine period, examining the lunar material without ever coming in direct contact with it or the astronauts. The samples, maintained in a constant vacuum to protect them from terrestrial contamination, will be analyzed in LRL biology, chemistry, mass-spectrometer and gamma-ray spectroscopy labs. Tiny amounts of moon material will be injected into germfree mice, which will then be observed for signs of strange or unknown illnesses.

NASA has even planned for an accidental "spill" that might expose the scientists directly to the lunar rocks and soil. In that event, the entire LRL would be sealed off, cots rolled out, and all the scientists in the lab at the time placed under quarantine until it could definitely be determined that the lunar samples contained no harmful organisms. If, as most scientists believe, no alien bugs are found and the health of mice and men alike remains good, the astronauts will finally emerge from the LRL three weeks after their landing to receive a belated heroes' welcome.

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