So I guess Wednesdays are gonna be my laid back days. I never seem to find time to write, so I apologize in advance for the mediocre content.
NASA recently started to fill a new role in their administration, a planetary protection officer, which honestly does not actually seem as badass as the name implies. Still a really important job, though, just not as science fiction-y as you would assume. Check it out here.
The job is essentially making sure we don’t get space AIDS and we don’t get space Earth AIDS. So no epic space battles or Doctor Who-esque adventures. But naturally, you’ll need a million different scientific and engineering qualifications to even be considered. Job pays well too, but, given the assumptions that come with the name, probably not enough honestly. I feel like if your job is to make sure the entire planet is protected from potential contagions while also ensuring we don’t contaminate other planets, you should be set for life.
When I heard of the position, I immediately thought of Will Smith’s character in Independence Day. Dude should be set for life for saving the whole planet. Would a $187,000 salary be enough to thank him? Probably not. Never. But this job is nothing like that obviously, so what the hell, right?
Apparently the position was created back in 1967 after the signing of the Outer Space Treaty, which was both surprising and unsurprising to me. We definitely don’t want something like what happened in Life to befall our beloved rock, do we? Whoever had the job before has clearly been doing a good job, so we can probably continue to have nothing to fear from the stars. Or maybe the reason the position is available is because something went wrong. I guess time will tell!
mack rogers writes 