In the MISA lab, we are working with partners at NASA Johnson Space Center and Marshall Space Flight Center to test and improve monitoring of microbial life in upcoming missions to the Moon and Mars (Artemis program), as well as understand how Earth-based microbial life is evolving and adapting to the space environment or other planetary environments.
Sample from Mars chamber experiments that was incubated in a MgSO4 brine at Mars atmospheric pressure (6 mb), similar to liquids that might have occurred on Mars in the Hesperian era. A crust develops on the surface of the liquid, but the biofilm below remains moist. This might help microbial communities survive better in the extreme conditions on Mars.
Is it possible for humans to explore and go to other worlds without bringing our microbial partners? NASA and other space agencies around the world support research that helps us understand the risk of contamination to another world (forward contamination), and ways to protect Earth from potential contamination from extraterrestrial materials (backward contamination).
Collaborator Rick Davis (Texas State University) shows off the current clean room outfits that are required in spaces at Johnson Space Center where NASA stores meteorite collections (curator.jsc.nasa.gov/antmet/). These measures help to prevent contamination of these precious extraterrestrial materials.
NASA and other space agencies around the world support research that investigates “forward contamination” - microbes from Earth going to Mars - as well as the potential for “backward contamination” - the possibility that microbes from Mars (IF they exist) or microbes that might evolve and change on Mars but were originally from Earth - could contaminate various planetary bodies in our solar system as we explore them. Understanding how microbes respond to these various planetary environments will be important to help limit these impacts.
NASA aims to help reduce the threat of contamination of Mars and other worlds during crewed space missions. Can microbes from Earth survive our planetary neighbors Mars and the Moon?
In a recent study, graduate student Christy Handel (Donachie lab, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa) worked with Dr. Prescott during her NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology to study the quorum sensing response of a small consortia of microbes to a Mars atmosphere. She modified the BBL 150 GasPak™ System chamber with intake and outtake valves to create a small Mars chamber.
The Outer Space Treaty, signed in 1967, stipulates that every effort must be made to protect other worlds from contamination by missions like the Curiosity rover. (see https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/news/putting-the-ethics-into-planetary-protection/).
