Post by Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe on Nov 22, 2004 11:09:52 GMT -6
This interesting article from Astrobiology magazine, writes about the possibility of a Earth virus surviving three years in the lunar environment. Although contested, it brings up the subject of human contamination of space.
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Lunar Germ Colony or Lab Anomaly?
Tiny earth, a planet that could be blotted out with a lunar astronaut's thumb.
This last week (November 19) marked the thirty-fifth anniversary of Apollo 12's lunar touchdown. As the second manned mission, the lander carried the third and fourth men to walk on the moon. While one of its primary goals was to demonstrate precision touchdown and navigation, its target was a robotic lander that awaited it on the surface. The mission was to retrieve parts of the Surveyor 3 probe.
One astrobiological implication was a series of bacterial culturing experiments. The outcome of that experiment have remained part of the lore of the Apollo program.
The plan was to bring back the camera portion of the probe, but when the recovery was done and results were analyzed in Houston, a remarkable report was generated at the time that buried in the camera's insulating foam was a strain of streptococcus bacteria that appeared to have dessicated and survived three years of protected lunar exposure.
In 1991, when Apollo 12 Commander Pete Conrad reviewed the transcripts of his conversations relayed from the moon back to Earth, he annotated his perspective: "I always thought the most significant thing that we ever found on the whole...Moon was that little bacteria who came back and lived and nobody ever said [anything] about it."
More here: www.astrobio.net/news/article1311.html
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I like Pete Conrad, and agree with his statement that this should have been brought to light years ago.
Perhaps a can of Lysol should be aboard all spaceflights.
-------
Lunar Germ Colony or Lab Anomaly?
Tiny earth, a planet that could be blotted out with a lunar astronaut's thumb.
This last week (November 19) marked the thirty-fifth anniversary of Apollo 12's lunar touchdown. As the second manned mission, the lander carried the third and fourth men to walk on the moon. While one of its primary goals was to demonstrate precision touchdown and navigation, its target was a robotic lander that awaited it on the surface. The mission was to retrieve parts of the Surveyor 3 probe.
One astrobiological implication was a series of bacterial culturing experiments. The outcome of that experiment have remained part of the lore of the Apollo program.
The plan was to bring back the camera portion of the probe, but when the recovery was done and results were analyzed in Houston, a remarkable report was generated at the time that buried in the camera's insulating foam was a strain of streptococcus bacteria that appeared to have dessicated and survived three years of protected lunar exposure.
In 1991, when Apollo 12 Commander Pete Conrad reviewed the transcripts of his conversations relayed from the moon back to Earth, he annotated his perspective: "I always thought the most significant thing that we ever found on the whole...Moon was that little bacteria who came back and lived and nobody ever said [anything] about it."
More here: www.astrobio.net/news/article1311.html
-----------
I like Pete Conrad, and agree with his statement that this should have been brought to light years ago.
Perhaps a can of Lysol should be aboard all spaceflights.