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Time is arguably the key limiting factor for interstellar exploration. Athigh speeds, flyby missions to nearby stars by laser propelled wafersats taking50-100 years would be feasible. Directed energy launch systems could accelerateon the other side also crafts weighing several tons to cruising speeds of theorder of 1000\,km/s (c/300). At these speeds, superconducting magnetic sailswould be able to decelerate the craft by transferring kinetic energy to theprotons of the interstellar medium. A tantalizing perspective, which wouldallow interstellar probes to stop whenever time is not a limiting factor. Primecandidates are in this respect Genesis probes, that is missions aiming to offerterrestrial life new evolutionary pathways on potentially habitable buthitherto barren exoplanets.  Genesis missions raise important ethical issues, in particular with regard toplanetary protection. Here we argue that exoplanetary and planetary protectiondiffer qualitatively as a result of the vastly different cruising times forpayload delivering probes, which are of the order of millennia for interstellarprobes, but only of years for solar system bodies. Furthermore we point outthat our galaxy may harbor a large number of habitable exoplanets, M-dwarfplanets, which could be sterile due to the presence of massive primordialoxygen atmospheres. We believe that the prospect terrestrial life has in ourgalaxy would shift on a fundamental level in case that the existence of thistype of habitable but sterile oxygen planets will be corroborated by futureresearch. It may also explain why our sun is not a M dwarf, the most commonstar type, but a medium-sized G-class star.

Why planetary and exoplanetary protection differ: The case of long duration Genesis missions to habitable but sterile M-dwarf oxygen planets