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Keeping Alien Samples Safe For Study
Metrollica writes: "Space.com features an article describing NASA's plans to prepare the Johnson Space Center that could one day house extraterrestrial life." An excerpt from the article: "It's human nature to clean for company more thoroughly than one would for oneself, but nowhere is this truth taken to greater extremes than at the Johnson Space Center. NASA's setting new standards of cleanliness in its labs that handle samples returning from space. And their efforts are laying the groundwork for samples that might some day contain evidence of extraterrestrial life from Mars, Europa, and other points little known."
you can always tell a poll's in trouble when he's got a 60% majority...
I've always thought Farscape and Blake's 7 were both similar in character makeup and plot arc (which is a good thing.. they're both awesome SciFi). My vote has to go to Rygel because he's such an unapologetic self centered sonofabitch, and he reminds me a lot of Avon. A refreshing change from the normal "lets help humanity (alienity???), be a nice guy/girl/amorphous blob" type of central character in your average SciFi claptrap.
Wait, I thought the poll said favorite escape characters. Never mind.
Farscape is a continuing series on the Sci Fi Channel. Currently on the third series. It revolves around the story of John Crichton an astronaut who while testing a vehicle, designed to use the gravity well as propulsion, accidentally gets tossed into a wormhole.
Ok while the story is really good and all, THEY DON"T HAVE ANY BLOODY NEW EPS! Then next new ep, is supposed to air sometime in april. relevent links: Official Web Site
That would be Chiana if you're into sex with aliens who don't look like us, or Aeyrn if you're into sex with aliens who do look like us.
- Relativistic? That's barely Newtonian!
There was no air on the moon or in high earth orbit, so there was no reason to keep the astronauts quaranteened.
HOWEVER, it was a good idea, because they didn't know everything they were dealing with yet.
On Mars, Europa, and Io, there exists a remote possibility for life. Retreival missions should be geared to keep this life hermetically isolated from the Earth's biosphere.... Just in case.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
I hope they'll organize a televised deathmatch between it and some Earth microbe, seen through a microscope. That'd be cool.
If all goes well the Stardust mission will be returning to Earth with cosmic dust particles from the comet WIld 2 sometime in 2006
From what is mentioned on the project webpage it seems that they plan to return the sample to Earth via a capsule to be jettisoned from the space probe when it returns.
While the chances for contamination are relatively low, it certainly can't hurt to be prepared.
More info at
http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/index.html
-- Your local friendly mad scientist-in-training
Imagine if there was once advanced, possibly even intelligent, life on Mars.
Would it be too far-fetched to speculate that perhaps that all higher life forms were wiped out by some virus or bacterial disease?
With the plant and animal life gone, the climate of the planet would change radically -- to the extent that we see today - but the cause of the catastrophy could stil be lurking in the soil.
What guarantees do we have that bringing back a sample of soil or rock from Mars wouldn't expose this planet to the same catastrophic outcome?
From what I read, scientists are still debating whether those odd fossil-like oddities discovered in meteoric fragments from Mars are actually petrified bacteria.
I think it makes a lot of sense to take every possible precaution when it comes to bringing stuff back from Mars. It might even be a good idea to do the initial analysis up in the ISS just in case it's really bad news. After all, how do we know that we could actually contain a pathogen such as that which might be returned from the red planet?
Is it really worth the risk?
we may as well give up now.
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Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
Yep, I think you've been listening to too much Art Bell.
Roswell was most likely just a smokescreen to divert attention from the fact that Nazi scientists were working for the US to develop their rocketry program. They probably realized that if they produced "evidence" of a crashed saucer and then quickly backtracked and denied it (substituting a weather balloon for the saucer) that people would think there was a conspiracy to cover up the alien crash. Worked pretty damn good. Meanwhile, no one is even thinking about having the former enemy on the public payroll.
That, my friend, is the real conspiracy.
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I didn't want to leave this space blank.
Zoltar: "Home Planet: these earthlings had a really crappy waiting room. The Nation Geographics were ten years old, they had no dish of candies on the coffee table, and from watching "Nick at Nite" we have determined that the next season of "I Love Lucy" you all have been waiting for is really going to suck. I suggest we destroy their planet now."
Why bring it to Earth? Just bring it to the Space Station.
Specifically, you have the returning space probe enter Earth orbit. A service vehicle is then dispatched to dock with the probe. Part of the service vehicle is designed to serve as a containment module for whatever beasties the probe brought back.
Then the service vehicle navigates back to the space station and docks. The containment module remains off-limits to personnel, all observation/experiments are performed using machines preinstalled in the containment module.
If the beasties start pulling an Andromeda on us, you jettison the module and send it on its way to the Sun.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
Of course, that fell in line nicely with rumors that JSC was actually a Hanger 18 site. And that's why JSC property includes lots of undeveloped land (all those underground facilities). Now days there's a major road and a magnet school along one of the borders that used to be closed off NASA territory.
Of course - its all bunk anyway. But it fit nicely with the Alien Room at the bottom of the (sometimes) locked elevator.
Johnson Space Center is just south of Clear Lake City, between the city of Houston and the Gulf of Mexico. The land it is on is already sinking. Every year, local roads disappear for days at a time under high water after heavy rains.
Houston locals, including the people at NASA-JSC, entertain themselves by betting on where the hurricanes are going to hit. Locals track them on maps--and everybody has maps with latitude and longitude, because they are distributed by local businesses printed on placemats, grocery bags, and such.
Clear Lake has a straight section running directly from the Gulf of Mexico to the south side of Johnson Space Center. Topo map A big hurricane, hitting at the right point in the tidal cycle, could create a storm surge that would flood everything at JSC up to, maybe including, the second floor.
When I worked there (a long time ago) high-water preparedness consisted of putting the equipment up on tables and desks.
It seems to me that a place which could be sloshing with seawater is not the best location for this lab.
No Comment ;-)
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck