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Mining Mars from Houston

Posted by michael on from the workarounds dept.

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."

6 of 63 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Interesting stuff by WegianWarrior · · Score: 4, Informative

    While recovering DNA may be hard / impossible (I'm fixing military aircraft for a living, not extracting organinc matter from rocks), we still can learn a lot of interesting things. After all, we can't extract DNA from a fossil, yet it teaches us (or rather, the guys who do that sort of thing for a living or as a hobby) a lot about the creature in question.


    I am, however, reminded by a television programe I saw on Discovery Europe a while back... where they 'proved' - by setting up a simulated Mars-base in Antartica or somewhere - that human explorers might see signs of life that a robotic explorer would miss. And I'm sure they could set up a (simplified?) DNA-extraction lab in a potential Mars-base too, thus preventing any organic remains from beeing erradicated by the radiation in outer space.

    --
    Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
  2. Here's the link by DredPirateRoberts · · Score: 5, Informative
    This article is what I was thinking of.

    --
    "All animals are created equal, but some animals are more equal than others." - George Orwell
  3. from Houston? by commodoresloat · · Score: 4, Funny

    You're kidding. There's oil on Mars?

  4. Previous research by LegendLength · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  5. ASTEROID sample return. by zzztkf · · Score: 5, Informative

    Japan's space agency,ISAS, is attepmting to send
    a probe to asteroid 1998SF36 and get sample to
    retrun to Earth.

    Launch will take place 2003, May.

    http://www.isas.ac.jp/e/index.html

  6. Funding un-manned mining... by billysara · · Score: 5, Funny

    Funding research on bringing back oil/minerals from high-radiation, toxic environments will certainly come in handy if the middle-east goes nuclear....

    Yes, I'm feeling cynical today..... :-)