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BOLD Plan To Find Mars Life On the Cheap
techfun89 writes "There is a BOLD new plan for detecting signs of microbial life on Mars. The nickname is BOLD, which stands for Biological Oxidant and Life Detection Initiative, would be a follow-up to the 1976 Mars Viking life-detection experiments. 'We have much better technology that we could use,' says BOLD lead scientist Dirk Schulze-Makuch, with Washington State University. He elaborates, 'Our idea is to make a relatively cheap mission and go more directly to characterize and solve the big question about the soil properties on Mars and life detection.' To help figure out the life-detection mystery, Schulze-Makuch and his colleagues would fly a set of six pyramid-shaped probes that would crash land, pointy end down, so they embed themselves four to eight inches into the soil. One of the instruments includes a sensor that can detect a single molecule of DNA or other nucleotide."
The B.O.L.D. program hinges on detecting oxygen exchange
What if the life form on Mars uses N2 instead?
Nitrogen is a bit on the inert side to be useful as life's energy source.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
No, you don't need machine vision algorithms or real-time human intervention. People often deal with much bigger delays in analyzing microscope images on earth. Phoenix actually had a microscope, they just aren't good at detecting bacteria.