Russia Will Send Life to Phobos

by Ian O'Neill on March 1, 2009

Going where no tardigrade has gone before

Boldly going where no tardigrade has gone before (edited by Ian O'Neill)

How ironic. Not content with searching for life on Mars, the Russian space agency and the US-based Planetary Society will soon be sending terrestrial life to the Martian moon Phobos. The mini-interplanetary travellers will consist of bacteria, spores, seeds, crustaceans, insects and fungi. Why? To see how biological life, in various forms, deals with space travel spanning three years.

So if you thought that a human (or monkey) would be the first of Earth’s ambassadors to land on Mars or one of its moons, you’d be very mistaken…

The Phobos-Grunt mission profile

The Phobos-Grunt mission profile

Russia has been carrying out a variety of biological space tests to see how life deals with the hazards of spaceflight recently. In one experiment carried out in collaboration with Japanese scientists, a mosquito was attached to the hull of the International Space Station (ISS) to see… what would happen.

The mosquito was a part of the Biorisk project, and the scientists knew the insect had the ability to drop into a “suspended animation” during times of draught in Africa. The African mosquito can turn its bodily water into tricallosa sugar, slowing its functions nearly to a stop. When the rain returns, the crystallised creature is rehydrated and it can carry on its lifecycle. The Biorisk mosquito however survived 18 months with no sustenance, exposed to temperatures ranging from -150°C to +60°C. When returned to Earth, Russian scientists gave the hardy mozzie a health check, declaring:

“We brought him back to Earth. He is alive, and his feet are moving.” — Anatoly Grigoryev, Vice President of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

©Gerald Yuvallos/Flickr

Quite happy with living in space, the mosquito ©Gerald Yuvallos/Flickr

Was this insect cruelty of the most extreme kind, or did it serve a purpose? Actually, the mosquito experiment provided an insight to a biological specimen after being exposed to cosmic rays for long periods, and it also showed us that the African mosquito’s natural ability to slip into a defensive coma, only to be revived and appear to be healthy (that is, if it was more than just its feet moving – there was no indication as to whether the little guy was successfully re-integrated into mosquito society). Perhaps the lessons learned from this small test may go to some way of helping us realise the potential for putting future interplanetary astronauts into some kind of biological stasis.

So that’s the idea behind sending creatures into space: we need to understand how animals and plants deal with space travel. This will aid the understanding of how humans will cope in space for long periods, plus we need to understand if there are any harmful effects from growing foodstuffs away from our planet. This is why the Russian space agency wants to go one step further when it launches its Phobos-Grunt mission next year, to send biological specimens on a voyage of a lifetime. A return trip to the Martian moon Phobos.

Say hello to our interplanetary ambassador, the tardigrade (FUNCRYPTA)

Say hello to our interplanetary ambassador, the tardigrade (FUNCRYPTA)

On board, it is hoped the US-based Planetary Society will be able to send a small package filled with 10 different species including tardigrades (“water bears”), seeds and bacteria. The main purpose of this experiment will be to test the panspermia hypothesis, where it is thought that life may travel from planet to planet, hitching a ride on fragments of planetary material. Most of the biological samples will be in a dormant state (i.e. the plant spores), and tests will be carried out when Phobos-Grunt returns to Earth to see if the bacteria survived, seeds germinate and spores… do what ever spores do.

Russia on the other hand has far loftier goals; the space agency will attach a small petting zoo. Inside the Russian experiment will include crustaceans, mosquito larvae (already proven to be enthusiastic space travellers), bacteria and fungi. The Russian experiment will specifically look at how cosmic radiation can effect these different types of life during an interplanetary trip (essential ahead of any manned attempt to the Red Planet).

Naturally, there are some concerns about contamination to the moon (if Phobos-Grunt doesn’t do the “return” part of the mission), but the chances of any extraterrestrial life being harboured on this tiny piece of airless rock are low. Having said that, we just don’t know, so the mission scientists will have to be very careful to ensure containment. Besides, there’s something unsettling about infecting an alien world with our bacteria before we’ve even had the chance to get there ourselves…

Source: Discovery

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  • http://princeofpithy.wordpress.com/ Prince of Pithy

    The idea of sending a separate mission with some bugs out to the orbit of Mars is good, but who’s going to pay for it? Also, while there were bacteria that hitchhiked to the moon inside some of the unmanned landers that survived long enough for astronauts to bring back, they weren’t exactly flourishing. If this mission crashed into Phobos the entire area of contamination would probably just be the impact crater. And that would motivate us to go there so we could clean it all up.

  • Derek

    I don’t understand the ethical issue here.

    We find meteors from mars on earth. Cross contamination would have happened long ago.

  • Salacious B. Crumb

    Derek Says:
    “I don’t understand the ethical issue here.
    We find meteors from mars on earth. Cross contamination would have happened long ago”.
    However there is a just slight difference Derek, as natural events are beyond our control. However, the problem with this idea, is we have a choice. However that if something goes wrong and we knowingly contaminate and other planet and moon, are we ethically right to do so?
    Some people look at life (like bugs or bacteria) as there to be used at our will, but others see that any life deserves protected, nurtured, and to use its environment as it sees fit.
    Clearly Phobos having life at all is pretty remote, but should we make certain our assumption is right. My own fear is that if we exterminate some possible life form, we might lose the chance of learning about the origins of ourselves.
    In reality before we do go to Mars with a crew of humans, such debate might be necessary IMO.
    There all might be alternative that are less risky cost no more.

  • http://apnea.cz trux

    > I don’t understand the ethical issue here.
    > We find meteors from mars on earth. Cross contamination would have happened long ago.

    I do not think it is so much about ethics, but more about being careful and not risking a contamination with no good reason, because we simply do not know the consequences, and may complicate our own future research.

    And cross-contamination with meteros certainly does not preserve biology as easily as a human-made sond. A meteor will typically need thousands or more likely milions of years before it lands on another planet, and any life the rock originally may have contained, will pass through much more stress (high and low temperatures during the impact and during the orbital travel, radiation, acceleration, thermal, and chemical reactions during the impact that sent the rock to the orbit, and then during the landing, etc…). Not impossible, but certainly much less likely to survive than a sample well preserved in a human-made sond with gentle start and landing, and only short time in space.

    As already written before in this thread – why risking a contamination (whatever low the risk is), when we can as well send the sond to a safe orbit around the Sun? It sounds just plain stupid and entirely unnecessary.

  • Dave

    I have to agree with Trux here, why send it to Phobos at all? Why not send it to a mars-sun distant orbit while keeping well away from mars itself…that will reduce the chance of cross contamination, while still putting the lifeforms through the same rigors of earth-mars spacetravel…

  • Bob Bobicans

    Russia is at it again!

  • http://lampadamagica.blogspot.com Jorge

    why send it to Phobos at all? Why not send it to a mars-sun distant orbit while keeping well away from mars itself…that will reduce the chance of cross contamination, while still putting the lifeforms through the same rigors of earth-mars spacetravel…

    Because we don’t have a mission going to a “mars-sun distant orbit” except those going to Mars itself. Space missions are very expensive. This is one experiment in a mission that includes a multitude of other experiments. There’s no way a dedicated mission could be founded just to study the behaviour of biological specimens at martian distances unless it’s doing also other studies of Mars and/or its moons.

  • Max

    There is always the risk of an accidental contamination from manned missions or improperly sterilized robots… but that would be in the process of trying to accomplish some meaningful science.

    We already know bacteria and simple organisms can survive in space so that part of the pan-spermia equation is resolved.
    What we need now is to find life on other worlds and figure out if its related to life from here. The ideal would be to go on mars and find something in the soil that is distinctive yet still very similar to earth life (or not similar at all…)

    Protecting anything existing on mars from life on earth would greatly further the study of pan-spermia and other theories. I think we can strike a reasonable compromise between exploration and science.

  • Yael Dragwyla

    There’s another way of looking at this. When two eukaryotic organisms — vertebrates, invertebrates, take your pick — get together and interact sexually, offspring result, and those offspring have genes from *both* parents. (There are some exceptions, but not that many.) In fact, microbes — both bacteria and viruses — swap genes with one another as well as with eukarya all the time, acting as messengers taking information from organism to organism all over the planet. The result is evolution (and lots of fun, but that’s another story) going beyond what a given lineage of organisms can do on its own. What it *isn’t* is disease or war — when a man and woman get together to have a baby, his sperm combines with her ovum to make what will become a baby, and in most cases no violence or disease is involved. That’s what Earth is trying to do: send her genes out to the universe at large, letting them fall where they may, hoping to make babies with other celestial bodies, and there’s nothing wrong with it. Life on Earth probably began in some little niche in the rock or puddle somewhere, and then spread out across the planet. Was that invasion of or war on the rest of the Earth? No, it was life doing what life always does, reaching for the future by expanding into all possible habitats. The only direction left for Earthly life to expand into is straight up — but that’s great, because perhaps out there Earthly life will finally run into our planetary soul-mates and make beautiful babies with them. :-D

  • marcellus

    Screw Phobos. Send ‘em up!

  • http://users.tpg.com.au/horsts/index.html Michael Paine

    Please see the Planetary Society information on this mission at:
    http://planetary.org/programs/projects/life/
    Including the FAQ “Is it likely that this experiment could contaminate Mars with life, thus confusing future searches for life on Mars? “

  • Benevolent B

    In Soviet Russia – New Overlords Welcome YOU!!

    /sorry best I could do.
    //but it needed to be said!

    ~]3

  • Miss Conception

    Yael Dragwyla says:

    ” …when a man and woman get together to have a baby, his sperm combines with her ovum to make what will become a baby”

    Oh my god!!!! I thought it was a stork!
    Mummy lied!! Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

  • NNM

    heh, I always pictures a mission like that…
    Only difference: I would have it purposely “contaminate” a planet… Throw seeds all over the place, bacteria, etc..!
    And “see what happens” (in 100 000 years…).

  • Katie

    The chances of one of Mars’ captured moons bearing life or the remnants there of is incredibly low statistically based on all the variables as I understand it, which is why they are heading to Phobos rather than to Mars proper for this experiment. Mars has the real potential to have been home to life at some point in its history; we now have compelling evidence of flowing liquid water and Mars has an atmosphere albeit a thin one, but there are suggestions that this was not always the case. As a result of this, any mission involving Earth flora or fauna (including micro flora and fauna) would obviously create a very real risk of contamination, but the only way to understand the affects of a trip to Mars on living cells and living entities is to travel the distance to Mars and back. However, as Jorge mentioned, single purpose space missions are financially impractical so the best compromise is to hitch a lift to Phobos, do everything possible to prevent contamination and hope like hell that this isn’t the one time that the cosmic random number generator doesn’t roll a 73950923.

  • Katie

    do everything possible to prevent contamination and hope like hell that this isn’t the one time that the cosmic random number generator rolls a 73950923.

    Now that sentence makes sense, missed it in the proof read.

  • hagnat

    > spores… do what ever spores do.

    be the most overrated hype from last year ? have awful drm restrictions ? be forgotten after a week play ?

  • UK David

    A lander mission to Phobos is an exciting prospect in itself.

    Not sure if taking a jar of insects adds greatly to the mission – but Phobos has tremendous potential as a natural holding location for fuels and supplies in future manned missions to Mars, so I imagine Phobos will see lots of life on it in the next few hundred years!

  • Alex

    Russia and the Planetary Society declare biological war on the Martians!

  • hiro

    Why don’t we send it to Venus or Mercury? I just wonder whether these bateria & insects etc… can survive in these extreme environments.

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