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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."
Just run this as a joint mission between the US and the EU, problem solved.
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
Oops, I think I just proved your point.
Should've read the title of your post first
*hides in a corner*
but I'm sober. How is it that life as we know it, consciousness, sentience, etc. is not enough? Think about it. Same universe. Same galaxy. Isn't life (as we know/call it) even in ONE place... enough? Beyond amazing, beyond impossible, totally and utterly improbable... yet here we are! So we get to mars and find a small pond of goo with some amino acids and proteins in it. So what? What's the big deal?
FTFS: "One of the instruments includes a sensor that can detect a single molecule of DNA or other nucleotide."
I wonder how many DNA molecules the probe might encounter on its way to Mars.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
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.
Well, what if they just breathe iron? You know, like some of the creatures here on Earth. Mars has lot's of iron... it has sulfer, and even some water. I suppose the life on Earth currently uses oxygen, so that's what we're looking for? I mean, what about The Great Oxidation Catastrophe? During which lots of this planet's anaerobic life was likely killed off (oxygen was poisonous to them, they didn't use it). Point being: We don't even know what to look for -- we have hardly any idea what the parameters of life are on our own planet. Until recently we thought nothing could survive at the bottom of the ocean, boy was that wrong.
I guess you've got to begin looking somewhere, and looking for the presence of life as we know it is a good start. However, all evidence will be inconclusive as to the existence of life unless they actually find life, or we do a whole lot more exploration of Mars than we've done of our own planet.
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.
a set of six pyramid-shaped probes
So that's what the title of the Doctor Who episode was referring to! I wonder if the probes will locate Sutekh.
Mars may be smaller than Terra, but it's still an awfully big place. Even if life exists or once existed on Mars, there's no guarantees its presence would leave a mark everywhere. Six immovable probes might find nothing and STILL not answer the question. The only way we get a useful answer at all from just six bullets fired into the dunes is that one of them actually finds something; if they find nothing it still doesn't disprove the presence of life.
It's great that the people behind this want to make names for themselves, but we need to think - and plan and budget - much bigger than this if we truly want a definitive answer. This plan with a spaghetti western budget won't give us one. It's essentially a waste of time. Bold, yes, but also pointless where the stated goal is concerned.
Because we can't reliably detect unknown life on THIS planet with an optical microscope?