NASA Searches for Extraterrestrial Life
A proposed robotic lab would carry instruments for identifying and measuring the chemical building blocks for life (as we know it), including thousands of carbon-carrying compounds, elements such as sulfur and nitrogen, and oxidation states of trace metals associated with life.
They still haven＇t found any Martian microbes, or telltale signs of alien biospheres orbiting distant stars. But scientists looking for signs of life in our solar system and the universe beyond are not discouraged.
Researchers at the biennial Astrobiology Science Conference near Houston, Texas, described a series of ambitious new projects they say will continue the search for extraterrestrial life.
Search for Extraterrestrial Life
Among them was Cornell University researcher Steve Squires, chief scientist on the Mars Rover Mission for the U.S space agency, NASA.
In a news briefing he told reporters that astrobiology will be central to future space exploration. "NASA is currently considering 28 different missions. They are sort of breathtaking in their sweep. They cover everything from Mercury landers to fly-bys of objects in the deep outer solar system."
Squires says one of the most ambitious endeavors is a Mars Sample Return Mission, which would retrieve rocks and soil from the Martian surface in three stages.
A robotic ranger would collect samples. A lander would pick them up and then rendezvous with an orbiter to bring them back to Earth. The project has been on the drawing boards for 20 years, but never acted on.
But the search for life, Squires suggests, is a long-term effort. "What we＇re saying is that it is possible to string those out in time, with gaps of potentially years. And what that does is that it makes the overall program more affordable because it spreads the cost out over time."
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