Owing to recent changes in the structure of the aerospace sector and its relationship to government, the landscape of the space industry is now experiencing the emergence of a commercialization paradigm. Private space endeavors may soon be able to target the novel market segments of space research and exploration, space resources utilization, and human access to space and to further stimulate the growth of a new space economy. Thus, the interdisciplinary field of planetary protection has to keep abreast of these advances to avoid unnecessary complications that might hinder the useful reinvigoration of economic interest in the space sector. Planetary protection is defined as a set of guidelines that aim to prevent the forward contamination of celestial bodies with biological material from Earth and the backward contamination of the terrestrial biosphere with extraterrestrial biological material. The possession of the technical capabilities for access to space by more than one private entity is now formulating the public perception of a so-called “Mars Race” that raises significant questions with respect to potential forward and backward contamination issues. This work outlines an environmental economics approach to backward contamination. Specifically, the commercial activities on Mars that may pose backward contamination risks are those that require the return of people, material, vehicles, or other equipment back to Earth, such as the potential business cases of Mars tourism and commercial sample return. Although these activities do not seem to pose a realistic planetary protection risk at present, it would be prudent to consider them during policy-making. Earth-return missions from Mars are expected to generate vigorous public interest worldwide in the environmental, health, and safety risks related to a potential backward contamination incident. As these kinds of missions also involve a post-reentry phase on Earth for the recovery, transfer, reception, and distribution of the samples and for the handling of returned people and equipment, quarantine issues that have not been raised since the Apollo era may become relevant again. In the case of this kind of post-reentry commercial activities, various jurisdictions and laws pertain to the matter. However, public perception will play a key role, as it has done in other industrial development projects with a need for social responsibility. Drawing from terrestrial analogies of siting noxious facilities and other development cases with strong environmental justice characteristics, this work will explore the application of environmental economics as an approach to equitably balance the benefits and costs of future commercial space endeavors with a backward contamination risk.

由于航空航天部门的结构及其与政府的关系最近发生了变化，因此，太空工业的格局正在经历商业化范式的出现。私人空间的努力可能很快就能针对空间研究和探索，空间资源利用以及人类对空间的利用等新兴市场领域，并进一步刺激新型空间经济的增长。因此，行星保护的跨学科领域必须与这些进步保持同步，以避免不必要的复杂化，而这些复杂化可能会阻碍航天领域经济利益的有效复兴。行星保护被定义为一套指南，旨在防止天体受到来自地球的生物材料的正向污染，以及防止地球外生物材料对地球生物圈的向后污染。一个以上的私人实体拥有进入太空的技术能力，正在树立公众对所谓的“火星竞赛”的看法，这引发了有关潜在的向前和向后污染问题的重大问题。这项工作概述了向后污染的环境经济学方法。具体来说，在火星上可能造成向后污染风险的商业活动是那些需要人员，物资，车辆或其他设备返回地球的活动，例如火星旅游的潜在商业案例和商业样本归还。尽管目前这些活动似乎并未构成现实的行星保护风险，但在决策过程中应谨慎考虑。从火星返回地球的任务有望在全世界引起与潜在的向后污染事件有关的环境，健康和安全风险方面引起公众的广泛关注。由于这类任务还涉及进入地球后的阶段，以回收，转移，接收和分发样品，以及处理返回的人员和设备，因此自阿波罗时代以来未曾提出的检疫问题再次相关。对于这种重入后的商业活动，与该问题有关的管辖权和法律各不相同。然而，正如其他需要社会责任的工业发展项目一样，公众的看法将起关键作用。借鉴有毒设施选址的地面类比和其他具有强烈环境正义特征的开发案例，这项工作将探索环境经济学的应用，以公平地平衡未来商业空间工作的收益和成本与向后污染的风险。