If anyone doesn't know it but the Earth is being polluted from Space everyday. Cosmic debris is floating to the surface of this planet, and NASA doesn't know about it ? Shame on them. Maybe they should have the Mars Rovers monitor what is falling from space on to the surface of Mars. As far as I'm concerned Planetary Protection Officer is a scam and a waste of tax payer dollars.

At first I thought me dino's eyes scanned over $187,000 before I clicked on the title to see if there was a link.
Guess such a top salary for some more government nonsense psychologically struck my fragile dino mind as typical.
Discovering no link, I re-read the post more carefully.
So it's just $187 for a whole years then. Okay, cool. How does one apply for that?
Me the old dino will take that job for a wee bit of payback for decades of my tax dollars involuntarily supporting the UN, EPA, ACLU, Planned Parenthood, NEA, Obama's gargantuan cash gifts to Iran and other ways the government big time blows money while without a slap happy libtard care running up the http://www.usdebtclock.org/.
Yeah, for $187 a year I'll just sit at home and occasionally write memos that will disapprove of space explorers tossing cigarette butts out of manned Martian rovers and instruct the combined use of hand gestures, math and music in order to tell ET the proper way to take a dump on Earth.
Me dino's job qualifications? I can name three movies in which "klaatu barada nikto" was used.
Hint~It was first used in a classic science fiction movie and later by a crappy remake. In a movie made in between those flicks, the leading man with a demonic book could not quite remember "Klaatu barada ni-ni-?-cough-cough!" that incompetence then causing grave markers to blast off like rockets and an army of skeletons to appear.
So there ya go. See? Me dino knows some stuff.

While the human population may be destroyed by some inadvertent act (returning spaceship brings bacteria to non resistant population) it might also be improved beyond our best expectations (bacteria that extends viable longevity and teaches objectivisim??) doing nothing is often worse than making a bad decision and is a result we may have to chance if we expect to survive and flourish as a race. Who should do it is always answered by objectivist philosophy with the best hope of doing it right in the first place and recovering when a mistake is made. Being a slave of others is never a good choice no matter what the promised outcome.

I think the technocrats started worrying after information from our roving Mars probes indicated there is a distinct possibility of indigenous microbial life there. Given the damage invasive species can do even when migrating from one part of our own planet to another, they started having all kinds of nightmare visions of a Martian plague. I think they hope that by getting out in front of the probability of dangerous alien life (however remote that may be) that serious consequences may be avoided. You can also thank Elon Musk for upping the panic level by calling for colonizing Mars, starting by 2020.

Two things come to mind. 1) Someone to blame when the Mars Rovers discover Blue-Green Algae that just happens to match that found in Florida waters, and 2) (more frightening) this could evolve into a whole Department of Planetary Protection that regulates all private space travel.

The real question is: How was this particular Golden Parachute discovered?

The people of earth need a private liberty protection weapon to save them from statist government intent on destroying human civilization. A nuke under DC in case of tyranny. Might even keep the elected "servants" in their home districts more often.