The 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing is behind us, but talk of further moon exploration goes on. In July, India launched an unmanned mission to explore the moon’s south pole, which would make it the fourth nation to land a lunar spacecraft in what has become an increasingly competitive space race.

As sovereign nations, private companies and international organizations all race back to the moon, the potential for space accidents will only grow. This month, for example, news broke that when a privately funded Israeli lunar probe crashed in April, it dumped human DNA samples and thousands of tiny living creatures called tardigrades on the surface of the moon. These dehydrated micro-animals can survive in temperatures much colder than those on the moon. Could this crash one day have consequences for the permanent moon base projects currently on the drawing board?