Not just science fiction or fantasy ...

Improbable as it may seem, Erudite Partner and I were together at the historic moment of the first Apollo moon landing in 1969. And we shared the same reaction -- not skepticism, but horror: The astronauts landed and the first thing they did was litter!

It turns out that scientists today are deciding that the human refuse, space suit diapers, and shit left behind by our astronauts might provide information about life's endurance and life's spread in a largely hostile universe. Brian Resnick at Vox explains:

... we took microbial life on Earth to the most extreme environment it has ever been in. Which means the human feces — along with bags of urine, food waste, vomit, and other waste in the bags, which also might contain microbial life — on the moon represents a natural, though unintended, experiment.

The question the experiment will answer: How resilient is life in the face of the brutal environment of the moon? And for that matter, if microbes can survive on the moon, can they survive interstellar travel, making them capable of seeding life across the universe, including on places like Mars?

... The question scientists are asking of whether anything is alive in those jett bags, while seemingly silly, may lead to important insights about the extreme conditions life can endure. But it will also speak to our human potential to contaminate celestial bodies — or even seed life on them — when we go exploring. That’s reason enough to go back to the moon and collect some samples.

They are making plans to go back and look through our litter. It is likely physically intact -- though whether any bacterial or other life survives is doubtful.

Whether these NASA plans and hopes can survive the vicissitudes of earth-bound funding and political posturing will remain to be seen.

But the idea of the project is an enchanting spur to our imaginations, as good science ought to be:

Now let’s say an asteroid comes hurtling by, slams into the moon, and projects the Apollo mission poop into the deep reaches of space (an extremely hypothetical situation). Could that seed life in the broader universe? Maybe.

And in that case, could life on Earth have been seeded by some alien astronaut’s feces? “No prevailing theory I’m aware of involves an astronaut’s diaper, but that whole idea is perfectly scientifically plausible,” [NASA scientist Mark] Lupisella says.