Technology used either in space exploration or satellite launches is a fast-growing sector and while the media is full of pictures of Curiosity Rover roaming Mars, Rosetta passing comets, or missions to Venus and Pluto, the really interesting discoveries are often made here on Earth during the preparation for such missions.
Both space travel and satellite technology require sensitive hi tech instruments that must be built in ultraclean, dust-free environments. Components have also to be cleaned to the nth degree.
Forays into space also require precautions to ensure that when visiting new worlds, we do not contaminate stellar bodies with our organisms and that, on return, no alien micro-organisms are inadvertently brought back. The sterilisation and containment techniques that form a key part of mission planning are often developed and later adopted by cleanroom users in other fields.
Fortunately for potential life on Mars, a ground-breaking study by microbiologist Andrew C. Schuerger, University of Florida and NASA Kennedy Space Centre, and planetary scientist Pascal Lee of the Mars Institute, SETI Institute and NASA Ames Research Centre, showed that humans exploring Mars with pressurised rovers are unlikely to contaminate the planet biologically (see Astrobiology, 15(6), 478–491).
Lee, with support from the Northwest Passage Drive Expedition, led a 750km crewed vehicular traverse in the Arctic. Along the way, samples of grit and snow were collected from inside and outside the vehicle to investigate the extent to which human microbes transported by the vehicle and its crew, might have transferred to the pristine snow surface outside the vehicle. Analysis back at the NASA lab showed that only a minute fraction of microbial species identified on board the vehicle were detected outside it.
The finding, while only preliminary, is cause for some reassurance – especially in view of how much harsher the Martian surface environment is than the Arctic. The research also shows true dedication to the job.
