[meteorite-list] Micronauts Ride Rockets In Interplanetary Travel Tests

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Dec 13 12:51:05 2004
Message-ID: <200412131750.JAA01433_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.tampatrib.com/FloridaMetro/MGB1XE91O2E.html

Micronauts Ride Rockets In Interplanetary Travel Tests
By JIM TUNSTALL
The Tampa Tribune
December 13, 2004

Think of them a micronauts.

They're tiny organisms strapped to a rocket's skin and shot into space.

The object: To learn if life can travel or has traveled aboard
meteorites between planets, including from Mars to Earth.

``Scientists within the last few years have found on Earth meteorites
that come from Mars,'' says Wayne Nicholson, a University of Florida
associate microbiology professor based at the Kennedy Space Center.

``These processes have been happening for years, but we don't know if
there were life forms aboard,'' Nicholson said.

If there were, did they survive?

Nicholson and others are trying to begin answering that by attaching
microscopic creatures to man-made granite meteorites placed on the
outside of small rockets. They retrieve the rockets when they return to
Earth to see what conditions the organisms can endure.

In April, UF and NASA launched organisms called Bacillus subtilis from
New Mexico's White Sands Missile Range.

The microbes can form spores that survive ultraviolet radiation, cold,
low pressure and lack of water for years.

Their rocket ride reached an altitude of 70 miles, just beyond NASA's
threshold of space.

When the rocket was retrieved, more than 10 percent of the microscopic
space travelers were still alive, despite being subjected to
temperatures of nearly 300 degrees Fahrenheit.

Next year, Nicholson hopes to send up another group of micronauts. This
time, they'll be inside the meteorite, perhaps giving them a better
chance at survival.

He says there's so much life on Earth it's very likely that a big
asteroid hitting our planet would launch pieces of life- bearing rock
into space, possibly destined for other planets.

``If a species is hardy enough, planets may interchange life, meaning
we're not biologically isolated,'' he says.

For now, we're left to wonder.

``There is a legitimate possibility there is no other life in our solar
system,'' says Andrew Schuerger, another UF researcher at Kennedy who
has to date unsuccessfully attempted to grow microbes in a Mars
simulation chamber.

``On Earth, we've found life in extreme environments and the scientific
community is leaning toward [there being] life elsewhere - not that
we're thinking sci-fi.

``It's an exciting possibility.''

The two scientists add that there are risks of bringing such life back
to Earth, inadvertently or otherwise, as well as unintentionally sending
our life into space.

``As long as we've had flights to other planets, we've tried to protect
the planets'' from contamination by organisms carried from Earth,
Nicholson says.

During and sometimes after assembly, rocket parts are sterilized in a
number of ways, including heat, gases and chemical solutions, Schuerger
says.

``We need to make sure if we discover there is life on Mars, it's
Martian and not something we took there,'' Nicholson adds.

Eventually, the experiments may help determine the beginnings of life.

``Life may not have originated on Earth,'' Nicholson says.

``It may have originated somewhere else and come here when Earth was
favorable'' to it.
Received on Mon 13 Dec 2004 12:50:58 PM PST