I think the only real justification for the ISS’ existence is to find out more about the effects of long-term human stays in space–especially the effects of weightlessness–in order to provide data for Mars missions (and other deep space flights), which will entail people being out there for years at a time. All the rest of that stuff about industrial research into microgravity and Earth sensing applications and so on and so forth is nice, but could be done as well or usually better by unmanned satellites.
I did. Some researchers think nanobacteria may be the cause of kidney stones. They may also play a role in scleroderma, atherosclerosis and dementia, among other diseases.
Interesting that nanobacteria were apparently discovered years before the Martian meteorite, in 1988, but apparently languished ignored until after the Martian meteorite was discovered in 1996. (see this site for a summary of the discovery of nanobacteria) You’d think the size objection would never even have been raised, but apparently information about nanobacteria did not disseminate through the scientific community rapidly. Thanks for the info on them, Five.
I can think of a few ways there might not be:
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It’s possible that the bacterial fossils found in ALH 84001 are the remains of Earth bacteria, contaminated after the meteorite landed on Earth. According to this summary, while the mineral globules can be dated to 3.9 billion years ago, there is insufficient material to date the bacterial shapes themselves. They might have worked their way into the meteorite after its arrival in Antarctica. After all, some parts of the same meteorite were found infested with Earth bacteria.
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It’s also conceivable that there was once life on Mars, when the conditions were more favorable, but that it died out as conditions became less favorable, perhaps especially with respect to water. However, bacteria on Earth can survive hundreds of meters down into solid rock, so I wouldn’t put the same capability past bacteria on Mars. The bottom line is that we just won’t know until we get there.
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Some people still contend that the mineral globules, PAHs, and even the nanobacterial shapes themselves could have been formed by nonbiological processes. this page contains summaries of some articles related to the controversy over how these materials might have formed.
While I’m really excited about the possibility that there may be life on Mars, and a certainly hope there is. There’s far from a scientific consensus on the matter. We can’t let the fact that it would be a really cool discovery prevent us from taking a critical eye to all the possibilities.
wevets:
The meteorite itself was actually collected in 1984 (hence the “84” in ALH 84001). It just wasn’t studied until 1996. The wheels of science turn slowly.
Feel free to write your congressperson/representative to provide more funding for ‘pure research’ types of sciences such as NASA’s planetary explorations. NASA often gets their budget cut because politicians want clearly achieveable & practical results.
Phobos, I hope you aren’t implying that I was busting on the good people at NASA. Nothing could be further from the truth; I know NASA has resources that are far too limited.
But I’d bet that even in a world of unlimited resources, the lag between sample collection/sample analysis will be long. Maybe even longer, because better funding would mean more samples collected.