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The Russian sample-return spacecraft will carry a zoo of microbes to Phobos and back to test whether life can survive the interplanetary journey
November 7, 2011 | 8
It is astounding what a lickin' this bacterium can take and keep on tickin' . D. radiodurans is famous for thriving under intense radiation; it can survive doses several thousand times stronger than would be lethal to humans....[More]
This Archaea thrives in volcanically heated ocean sediments, at temperatures that can exceed 100 degrees Celsius . Scientists doubt it is analogous to anything that might live on frigid Mars, but they included it as an experimental control....[More]
Nothing as complex as baker's yeast would ever have made the journey from Mars on board a meteoroid, but scientists included it in the capsule just to see if it can tough out the ride.
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Carrying the banner for the animal kingdom are these 1.5-millimeter-long relatives of nematodes, known as water bears. They have already demonstrated their resilience in extreme conditions, including high levels of ionizing radiation and the vacuum of space....[More]
The flowering seeds of this little plant have gone to the moon and back on board Apollo lunar missions—and they still germinated, despite the heavy radiation dose.
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8 Comments
Add CommentSo... they do not view this as a possible contamination situation? Or is there a mechanism in place to sterilize these lifeforms if something goes wrong, like loss of control and crashing into Mars?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthe microbes are not going to the planet, only to the russian capsule
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think BillR's question was actually "What will happen to the container in case of a crash?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell, let's hope everything will be OK, 'cause I'm itching to see the results of this mission.
I HOPE there is successful contamination. Are people truly worried about contamination of a small, dust covered rocky moon? We should be contaminating it on purpose and hoping for the best!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI love the idea of science not interfering, or contaminating a possible bio system - but Phobos is NOT Europa or Enceladus. If we have organisms here that can reproduce and thrive in a place as inhospitable as Phobos, then what's to keep us from terraforming a place like mars and letting the metabolic processes of microbes prepare the planet for more earth like organisms. These small bodied worlds look like the best place for real experimentation - not worlds that should be carefully isolated and left to evolve.
OK, I know the WHYS of not contaminating a pristine environment.... I like to understand the WHY NOT Start bioengineering..NOW? An automated biosphere is possible. Why not find now what organisms will survive and produce O, CO2, h,...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLets place automated construction equipment to build shelters tunnels, place a power plant to recharge this equipment. Could place a power generator on or near polar and experimental on producing H2O, hydrolysis creating O2 and H....
Torchlake,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBefore you start terraforming, you need to understand all the cause and effects. We cannot even figure out our own environment, how are we going to plan changing some other environment....
And there is always a possibility that Phobos can get nudged by a large asteroid and end up hitting Mars as well. There is a lot of speculation that Phobos is actually a captured asteroid.
Consider that the unprotected exposure of a crashed experiment on Phobos caused genetic modifications that allowed the life to survive. But we later find that our exposure to those modified lifeforms is deadly to all life on Earth. Would you still want to throw all caution to the wind and do it anyways? I am afraid the answer would still be "Why not!"... <sigh>
Mr. Matson and Mr. Musser are just plain old wrong. There is no scientific evidence that a round trip mission to Mars would "probably kill a crew of astronauts" as they put it. For one the amount of radiation they would be exposed to while certainly not good for you would not "kill the crew". Yes radiation increases the probability of someone getting cancer in their life time, but the uptick associated with lets say a year and half trip to and from Mars will raise your cancer odds by a few precnt. On top of that protection against solar activity only requires a warning system for the crew (we already have a warning system for the planet) and a temporary shelter where the crew can ride out the storm, a technology which is old-fashioned not futuristic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNeither you and Matson/Musser are completely correct. NASA estimates that the risk of contracting fatal cancer for an astronaut enduring a 1000 day Mars trip is between 4% and 19%, on top of the 20% risk that the average male already has. So if it's 4%, that's not that big of a deal, but if it's 19% then a Mars astronaut would have a nearly 40% chance of dying from cancer, which is unacceptable. Also, the biggest risk of harm is apparently from interstellar cosmic rays, not solar flares. http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2004/17feb_radiation/
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