Phobos– the largest and innermost moon of Mars. Note the large crater shown in the lower right, known as ‘Sickney’.
The proposed experiment is called LIFE -Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment–and will be placed aboard Phobos-Grunt, a joint Russian-American mission to Phobos, the largest (and innermost) of Mars’s two moons (the smaller being Deimos). If all goes according to plan, it will be the first time living creatures from Earth will be sent intentionally beyond our Earth – Moon system.
The samples to be sent include four species of bacteria: Deinococcus radiodurans (a radiation resistant bacterium), along with three species of Archea (ancient, microbial life forms also known as “extremophiles” due to their ability to thrive in ultra-harsh conditions), several tardigrades (“water bears” – tiny, eight-limbed invertebrates known for their ability to repair their DNA), numerous yeast spores, seeds from the mouse-eared, cress plant Arabidopsis thaliana, and a soil sample from Israel’s Negev desert.
The purpose of the mission, according to Bruce Betts of The Planetary Society (which is collaborating with Roscosmos, the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences), is to buttress evidence in support of a theory known as transpermia, which holds that life on our planet could have originated elsewhere in the solar system (or galaxy) and been transported here (possibly via a Mars-ejected meteor, or an asteroid or comet). The disc and samples have already been tested and found to be capable of withstanding some 4000 g’s (4000 times the gravity of Earth at its surface) which is one hundred times more force than expected in the mission’s entire flight plan.
Some evidence supporting transpermia was found in the recent (2004) Stardust mission to the comet Wild-2 which collected comet trail dust and ice samples. Upon analysis, the cometary debris was found to have traces of glycine, an essential amino acid necessary for some protein synthesis. However, it is just as likely–if not more so–that life on Earth arose here on Earth first. The famous Miller-Urey bio-genesis experiments of 1953 (and repeated/confirmed in 2007) found that adenine molecules (one of the four nucleotide building blocks of DNA) “spontaneously self-organized” in a mixture of methane, ammonia, hydrogen and water–after receiving a jolt of electricity. This mixture was concocted to represent the likely conditions present on the early Earth. The Stardust discovery more likely indicates that proto-biotic molecules are relatively common throughout the galaxy
The LIFE microbe samples will not be “alive” in the typical sense of the word, as they will be freeze-dried for the duration of their projected, three-year flight (to and back) to resist the extreme cold of space. They will also be sealed in special vials and then further sealed in a titanium disc small enough to be held in the palm of your hand. Titanium is the lightest and strongest of elemental metals and many critical components of space craft, large and small, have been made from (or shielded with) the metal, as it offers excellent protection from radiation damage.
Titanium disc that will contain the LIFE microbe samples carried aboard the Phobos-Grunt mission
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About Michael Ricciardi
That is so not a good idea, we shouldnt do that until we are sure that there is no life on phobos or any other place they decide to send bacteria to… remember how back in the 1600 we helped rats(and other non-indigenous animals) spread all over the world and kill the the native species…
Wakaa,
Humans!?
We are in a overpopulated world! You didn’t receive the memo but the more people die the better.
Seriously! It’s not a conspirator theory. It’s for real. Just take a look at what US is doing to their own citizens. Health, selling medications that makes people more sick, is the 3rd source of money in UK, as the UK Parliament has already claimed in the review “The Influence of Pharmaceutical Industry”, 2005.
What about the health insurance in US? Medicaid, Medcare?
30.000 Americans… who cares? LOL
(this is slightly off topic , but…)
It may not be conspiratorial, but it is still the product of conspiratorial propaganda–especially when only one side of an issue is presented.
Yes, some drugs were rushed to marketplace (to be expected when we allow the clinical trial and revieww period to be shortened by almost two thirds!), before the effects were known (greed), or, rushed to the market after suppressing known risks (malfeasance)…but many drugs, pharmaceuticals, do in fact help people, many of them with slightly to significantly more than placebo response outcomes….but they don’t work for everyone…plus, we are condition to believe in the ‘magic pill’ concept (part of the placebo effect, btw)…
….the world would not be ‘over-populated’ as you say if there was much less waste, and less unequal distribution of energy. For the amount of raw materials and energy Americans consume (32 times more than a typical African villager), and the amount of waste we generate (Eurpoeans have comparable consumption rates)…WE are over-populated….does your insoucient attitude towards over-population die-offs extend to Americans and Europeans…
As far as the actual topic goes, I am ambivalent about this…Russian right now seems to be intent on taking bold steps in its Space Program (such as new targeting an asteroid (that will come within 300, 00 miles of EArth) to be destoyed in space…maybe its just to make the West a bit skittish (pushing ouor space buttons, as it were)…but their programs have always been daring or ‘pushing the envelope’ in some way…
I would say that something like this should be put to a “world vote”…bu then, if we did that with every space mission, I fear little spce science would evr get done.
Well I believe if we are going to ever be able to leave this planet and sustain a livable substitute to earth; then why not put microbes on other planets. They can do more transforming in a few decades then we could do in centuries. They could turn a cold planet like Mars into a habitability world once again. They can thrive off the martian landscape and pump trillions of tons or oxygen into the atmosphere in turn heating the planet significantly. Yes they might interfere with life that might be on the planer, they might also make it flourish. Who is to say if we don’t try.