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Mining Mars from Houston
An anonymous reader writes "Computer simulations of what bits of Earth, Mars and Venus might be found on the moon point to new methods for extraterrestrial sample return. Because the moon is lifeless, its sterile condition gives a very rare laboratory for collecting what may be as high as 3 grams of Earth's past, from the half-ton of lunar rocks and soil that Apollo returned for study [3 grams (Earth-terran), 0.03 grams (Mars), 0.003 grams (Venus)]. While such interplanetary exchanges are now thought common, what is surprising is these pristine samples often have never exceeded a temperature of around 100 F. Any similar planetary samples found today in, say, Antarctica, would have been weathered, eroded, or contaminated."
Unmanned gathering of moon rock was carried out back in 1972 by the Russians. It took 7 years after the analysis was published before anyone realized that there were organic patterns in the samples.
Real images of the fossils show bacteria-like shapes. There were claims that these fossils prove existance of life elsewhere in space but it seems more likely to me that they somehow came from Earth.
The amounts they're talking about are what they expect to be able to extract from the half-ton or so that Apollo returned. 3 grams of material from Earth, 0.03g from Mars (makes sense, it's a hell of a lot further away), and 0.003g from Venus (far away, and closer to the sun. material has one hell of a time getting AWAY from the sun's gravitational well).
I'd say yeesh, read the article before you spout off your ignorance, but hey, this is Slashdot.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Apollo 12 landed on the moon next to a Surveyor probe that had been there for a couple of years. The astronauts cut off a camera, and brought it back to earth. Inside the camera some bacteria were still technically alive, but in a dormant state. So the vacuum won't destroy DNA by itself, and if bacteria if in a crack deep in a rock then radiation is not really an issue either.