NASA's Planetary Protective Officer



It seems that NASA is looking for a Planetary Protective Officer.  It is a real job with a real salary ($124,000 to $187,000 annually).  Scientist Catherine Conley has been in this position for the past few years, and says it is primarily interested in protecting the planet from biological contamination from outer space and vice versa. [We don’t want to contaminate Mars, for example, with the explorers we send there.] 
            There is some theatrics associated with the term “Planetary Protective Officer.”  It reminds us that not all illegal aliens come across the border.  But this is a fear we have faced before.      
There is a special movie genre that has devoted fans.  I am talking about 1950’s era science fiction.  Almost any discussion of these sci-fi classics will put the 1951 movie, The Day the Earth Stood Still in the number one spot.  The movie starred Michael Rennie (damn good-looking man!) and Patricia Neal in a thriller steeped in cold war paranoia and a dark warning for the future of man.  In many ways, however, the second lead belongs to a huge, metallic and all-powerful robot, Gort, played by 7’7” actor, Lock Martin (what a great stage name!).          
            The old movie (don’t waste popcorn on the 2008 remake) has a spaceship setting down on the Capitol Mall.  Klaatu (Rennie) gets out, tries to deliver a message of peace and is shot down.  His robot, Gort, retaliates but Klaatu stops him.  Klaatu is healed, escapes, goes underground as the mysterious, “Mr. Carpenter,” finds a sympathetic pseudo-love interest (Patricia Neal), and finally gets his message across to the world’s leading scientists, though he dies in the attempt.
[Deep breath.]
In all of this, Gort, the robot, remains a menacing, barely controlled presence.  It is finally revealed that Gort is one of a race of autonomous, rational robot policeman who were created to wreck vengeance on any group that threatens the safety and serenity of all civilized beings.  The robots were created and empowered by the sentient beings of the galaxy to keep monsters in check. Klaatu’s message to Earth is that we need to get our house in order or the planet protecting robots will cull the herd and make way for better problem solvers.  
[To say the truth, I am not entirely opposed to this idea.  Consider that little PEZ dispenser that is currently the fearless leader in North Korea.  But I digress.]
Back to The Day the Earth Stood Still.  Only serious trivia players know that the movie was taken from a short story, “Farewell to the Master” written by Harry Bates and published in the October, 1940 issue of Astounding Science Fiction.  In this story, both simpler and more thought provoking than the movie, the plot twist at the end reveals that the robot, not the humanoid, is the master—an emotional exclamation point. 
I am not terribly worried about invaders from outer space.  If they come, they will probably come in the form of microscopic life embedded in the rock and dust of a meteor.  Meteors hit the planet every day and they can carry just about anything with them, in fact, there is plenty of evidence that the life we now have on this planet came from deep space. 
But I do see the need for a Gort-like Planetary Protective Officer in the form of special forces, smart bombs and armed drones, all of which can administer justice in one almighty final way.  If you let rats run rampant we all end up with the plague. 
Stay strong and keep the faith. 

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