[solitas]

The 'Andromeda Strain' in reverse? :)

[djf]

I'm watching Andromeda Strain right now! The jet just crashed. But, as it's been said on other threads, there is a high probability that terrestrial micro-organisms have already been spread to Mars, by large scale meteorite impacts on Earth.

[LibWhacker]

Mars has been getting contaminated with little earthling bacteria for hundreds of millions of years, probably billions of years. Happens almost everytime a good sized meteor or comet hits us.

Also, the Science Channel just ran a documentary recently that touched on the subject of terraforming Mars and they said there aren't any known bacteria on earth that could survive on Mars. It'd take some kind of extra-hardy extremophile and there aren't many of those in the clean room where these rovers were assembled. In all likelihood it'll take genetic engineering to come up with a bacterium that could make it on Mars.