Amanda Lowery wrote:

> Point taken.  So what if the infected astronaut(s) is/are alive and
> transmitting until something relatively mundane causes ground 
> control to lose contact with the ship at some point, including vital 
> signs telemetry?

Maybe the vector shouldn't be the astronauts themselves but the Big Macs
they've brought along?  It's the new virally-yummified Big Macs which spread
pestilence and intestinal-sloughing once they return to earth, with a few
infected Big Macs left in their lunch boxes and everybody is happy and
celebrating so Ground Control and the marsonauts celebrate with Big Macs and
the Big Macs get switched and the pimply-faced kid no-one likes eats a whole
passel of them Big Macs and his eyeballs turn red, ominously, as he watches
the cute mission specialist who won't give him the time o' day daintily
eating Big Macs with the hunky astronauts, who are eating Big Macs.  I mean,
who can resist a Big Mac?  Plus you got your product placement there
already.

Or substitute Garden Burgers for the vegetarians.

Will you have a scene like that in _Hot Zone_, with the victims crashing out
and the sound like a sheet ripping as their liquefying intestines are
forcibly expelled through their anuses, their blood a black stew of viral
particles, their skins a yellowing bruise, their voices a vomitous burble?

-- 
Gryffyd
xROU Please oh please oh please