That's likely the eventual plan.

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.

Exactly my point. At first I thought it was a joke, but no, it is a real position.

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.

Having been a newspaper reporter during the 70's, I can type fast even though self-taught.
I'd take the paper out of the typewriter and apply my college course editing skills with a pencil to the typos and other boo-boos.
Then I'd turn the story in.
I would have used a word processor if I hand landed the police reporter job a managing editor promised I'd have at the end of a hiring freeze at The Montgomery Advertiser in Alabama.
His hiring someone fresh out of college for a lot less money was writing on the wall (among other things) that I needed to change my career.
Now I'm retired and enjoying a pension I otherwise would not have had.

The only advantage of slow typing is that I'm retired and no one is rushing me.

And there I was LOL (real time that laugh) trying to be nice. Overly nice.
A is A. $187.00 is $187 without the decimal point.

Don't think a spell checker would have helped much with $187.00.

I'd be dead without my spell checker.
But it does not catch everything.
Came here from staring at a "may" that was supposed to be a "many" in one of my replies and the time to edit has run out.

Typos R Us.
Never had a typing lesson. Who needs it? he said laughingly before desktop computers appeared.

He is a shape-shifter alright.

I'm beginning to wonder about him too Herb...he is a mixed basket of stances and ideas...some good, some misguided...but I don't like that we, unbeknownst to us, funded his but, then went to a foreign country...(he does have stuff in the US though.-.-but I wonder if he paid or got it gratis.)

What I see is $187.00. Made me think the whole thing was maybe a joke.
So my initial kicking-in dino hunter instincts proved to be on the money when my eyes scanned over the post for the first time.
I am dino~
Hear me ROAR!
I won't bother to apply.
They will be looking for some PC man-made climate change sap.
By the way, $187.00 is $187. Shorten (#=typo) a $187,000 with $187K next time.

My Jewish paranoia keeps troubling me about that Elon guy. I keep feeling as if he's a snake oil salesman who is selling delicious things that will eventually rot off our limbs. Sorry, no evidence, just irrational distrust.

Slavery is as slavery does to say it in Gumpian.
Slaves kept in health, peace, and allowed free expression would be an improvement over today's chaotic world, would it not? Of course it would not. That's the promise of all the collectivists.

I put down $187,000 for shock value. Actually the job is advertised as from $124,000 to #187,000 if that makes you feel any better. (I doesn't me). Apply to NASA. but I suspect some beltway insider will get the job.

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.

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.