The Space Thread

[Brad]

We have the BFG's for them...

[Blue]

Seriously though, comparing Mars to Antarctica is like comparing Antarctica to Hawaii.

Mars has less atmospheric hydrogen or oxygen and is averagely colder than any place on the face of the Earth has ever been.

[Brad]

Yeah, isn't the dust on the surface corrosive? That, combined with all the dust storms, could be a major safety hazard for any manned expedition.

[BTGBullseye]

Yeah, isn't the dust on the surface corrosive?

No more corrosive than the dust in Arizona.

 

That, combined with all the dust storms, could be a major safety hazard for any manned expedition.

That's why they design and test the probes in the Arizona desert were they can be subjected to fairly similar dust/sand storms. Manned missions were being trained in similar ways. (I knew the guys that designed the quadcycle they were supposed to use on the manned missions)

[WonSul]

Regarding the talk about finding micro-organisms on meteorites and the such that crashed into Earth. The general problem that always comes up is whether the micro-organisms in the meteorite originated from outer space or are Earth born micro-organisms that contaminated the meteor after impact. I don't know if the recent discovery in what was it.. February/March? that claimed that there was a way to tell the origin's apart, proved to be valid but I do recall that in the past it has been basically impossible to tell the exact origin of the micro-organisms or their remains.

 

Regardless of all that. I think it's entirely possible for micro-organism's to survive outer space. As demonstrated by our resilient super badass water bear friends that survived the vacuum of space.

"The Spice must flow"

[alphabetagamma]

Tardigrades are extremely resilient, but they can't really "survive" in space for too long.

Tardigrades are able to survive in extreme environments that would kill almost any other animal. Some can survive temperatures of close to absolute zero (−273 °C (−459 °F), temperatures as high as 151 °C (304 °F), 1,000 times more radiation than other animals, and almost a decade without water. In September 2007, tardigrades were taken into low Earth orbit on the FOTON-M3 mission and for 10 days were exposed to the vacuum of space. After they were returned to Earth, it was discovered that many of them survived and laid eggs that hatched normally.

Considering that only "many" survived after 10 days, I doubt tardigrades, or any earth animal for that matter, could survive in outer space long enough to reach another hospitable environment. Not to mention the +1000 °C temperatures they would face during reentry.

[WonSul]

Tardigrades are extremely resilient, but they can't really "survive" in space for too long.

Tardigrades are able to survive in extreme environments that would kill almost any other animal. Some can survive temperatures of close to absolute zero (−273 °C (−459 °F), temperatures as high as 151 °C (304 °F), 1,000 times more radiation than other animals, and almost a decade without water. In September 2007, tardigrades were taken into low Earth orbit on the FOTON-M3 mission and for 10 days were exposed to the vacuum of space. After they were returned to Earth, it was discovered that many of them survived and laid eggs that hatched normally.

Considering that only "many" survived after 10 days, I doubt tardigrades, or any earth animal for that matter, could survive in outer space long enough to reach another hospitable environment. Not to mention the +1000 °C temperatures they would face during reentry.

 

I think under certain conditions they could survive. With the ability to survive at temperatures near absolute zero, they could reside inside the crack of a meteor or asteroid. They could also survive the really high levels of radiation. The problem is food.

 

Also, the point isn't really the Tardigrades specifically. but that there is life that can survive being exposed to a vacuum, going without water for a decade, and the capability to withstand incredible levels of radiation. That leaves open the possibility that even more resilient life could exist that is actually capable of living on a meteor or asteroid. And it's not about reaching a hospitable environment or surviving reentry. Since this kind of life would have to have evolved on the meteor or asteroid that it resides on. Or how would something on a planet, get transferred onto a rock that's headed for outer space? The only way I can think of is if the planet was hit by a similar sized planet and some of these organisms survived on a fragment. That sounds unlikely. If the organism evolved on the asteroid and it's remains were found in a meteorite fragment. That would be incredible. As it would indicate that yes, life can and has evolved outside our blue marble. The ability to survive reentry is not required.

[Psychotic Ninja]

SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!

[Doom Shepherd]

The Planetary Society will be launching a tag-along mission on the Russian Phobos mission, which will hopefully launch in November. It will contain samples of several different kinds of hardy Earth life - including tardigrades, I believe - to Mars's largest moon and back, in an attempt to see if life forms can survive a journey of such length.

 

Also, the LDEF (Long Duratuion Exposure Facility) satellite exposed spores of the bacterium Bacillus subtilis to space for six years and some survived.

[McFirson]

On the serious note, I like this thread a lot. Many people, many thoughts, many theories, many sources... Nice.

 

On the funny, but completely related note: Scene from "Phineas and Ferb" show which may explain why we haven`t found bigger lifeforms on Mars yet.

[Doom Shepherd]

On the serious note, I like this thread a lot. Many people, many thoughts, many theories, many sources... Nice.

 

On the funny, but completely related note: Scene from "Phineas and Ferb" show which may explain why we haven`t found bigger lifeforms on Mars yet.

 

 

Actually, as this Red Vs. Blue video explains,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYdRWMyePj8

[Blue]

Speaking of which, one of the reasons why a probe to Mars failed was because of a failure to convert some measurement from imperial to metric.

[ProHypster]

Speaking of which, one of the reasons why a probe to Mars failed was because of a failure to convert some measurement from imperial to metric.

 

Yes, I remember reading about this failure, a european probe was handed over to NASA which thought that it was running on imperial but it was actually running on metric so all their commands in numbers were off. So it failed....

 

Scientific calculations around the world are calculated in Metric Units as an industry standard (SI) so when the European Space Agencies provided their work for the probe it was done in Metric. The American Scientists failed to convert these figures when implementing them in the hardware of the probe. School boy error.

 

It cost NASA ergo the American Taxpayer (YOU) $200 million when the 2001 Mars probe failed due to Top scientists not converting European Standard Metric calculations into US Imperial figures.

 

I have read that even Liberia changed their system by the way so now it's only Myanmar and the US using the imperial system.

 

I'm not even going to comment what me and my friends thought of this the day I told them...

[J.C.]

I wanted to point out two stories developing this week.

 

The first one is the signal that was received from the "Phobos-Grunt" space probe Russia launched a couple of weeks ago. It entered orbit but failed to fire it's engines for the push to Mars. Now, a signal has been received.

 

I know it's highly improbable, but it would be awesome if they could salvage the mission. Let's remember the primary goal for this probe was to return to earth carrying a sample from Phobos, Mars' largest moon.

 

The second news is the imminent launch of Curiosity (this Saturday, if all goes well). This is one badass machine, also headed for Mars, packed with a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (which means no more dusty solar panels slowing the mission down), human height mounted hi-resolution cameras, a powerful laser (for dealing with the odd Cacodemon it might encounter) and a lot of sensors and instruments.

 

And forget about landing surrounded by balloons and bouncing around. This thing is doing it old school. With parachutes, rockets and, as it says on NASA's fact sheet, "in the final seconds, the upper stage acts as a sky crane, lowering the upright rover on a tether to the surface."

 

As I said: badass.

 

If Curiosity lands safely next year, I'm throwing the biggest Accursed Farms Super Mega Awesome Lottery ever.

[WonSul]

I'll stay tuned for that.

Premature cheers! 0/

[Axeldeath]

Lichen survives in outer space.

 

Lichen is 1337.

[J.C.]

Curiosity launches tomorrow!

 

This should have a live feed of the event

 

 

What a beautiful machine.

[alphabetagamma]

But what if Mars is inhabited by cats? This could be a huge mistake!

[Kirkreng]

Do they have one of these?

[Razor235]

But what if Mars is inhabited by cats? This could be a huge mistake!

 

SPACE CATS!!!!!!

er, um, martian cats.