NASA plans to return astronauts to the lunar surface again in the near future, with four astronauts scheduled to orbit the moon next year.
“We don’t need to go back to the Moon just for the Moon’s sake. We’re going back to learn new things to get us to Mars and beyond,” said Secretary of NASA Bill Nelson.
The Mars rover Perseverance is exploring Jezero Crater, once a lake on the red planet, where scientists think it may have hosted life in the distant past.
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“We’re taking samples, we’re drilling with this drill to create core samples the size of cigars, and we’re sealing them in titanium tubes,” Nelson explained. “Now we’re figuring out how to get those samples and bring them back to Earth to see if there’s life out there.”
NASA is currently working with companies to develop plans for a possible return mission in the 2030s, and the agency is also collaborating with Firebird Diagnostics in the search for life on Mars.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said the agency is preparing for the possibility of finding life in space. (Getty Images)
“NASA’s mission, among other things, is to go out into space and discover whether we are alone,” said Stephen Benner, founder of Firebird Diagnostics.
His company sells so-called alien DNA, which uses synthetic properties to help NASA understand what alternative forms of DNA might exist.
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“The big question is how molecular biology could be done by organisms that don’t have a common ancestor or a common origin with you and me,” Benner said.
This DNA also helps detect diseases on Earth, such as COVID-19, cancer, and HIV. Human DNA is made up of four nucleotides, or building blocks; Benner’s compound has up to eight. This allows for more sensitive tests and eliminates false positives.
This image released by NASA shows an illustration of the agency’s Perseverance rover safely landing on Mars. (Xinhua/NASA/JPL-Caltech via Getty Images)
“This tool allows you to search for a needle in a haystack without having to worry about context,” Benner said.
Nelson says the search for life on other planets helps us better understand who we are in the universe.
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“If you ask me directly: Do you think there are aliens on Earth? I don’t think so. I definitely don’t know. I don’t think the U.S. government is hiding anything from anybody. But if you ask me, ‘Do you think there is life in the universe?'” Nelson said. “I asked NASA scientists, ‘How many other planets in this vast universe could possibly be habitable for life like Earth?’ And they said at least a trillion.”
Nelson said it’s likely that there is life out there, but whatever it is, it’s likely so far away that we won’t discover it for a long time — but NASA is still preparing for that possibility.
Former U.S. Senator and current NASA Administrator Bill Nelson speaks during his nomination confirmation hearing before the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee on April 21, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington, DC. (Saul Loeb Pool/Getty Images)
“Even if we could travel to distant worlds at the speed of light, nearby worlds are 1,000 light years away,” Nelson said, “but that doesn’t mean we can’t get some idea of what’s out there.”
Nelson has urged NASA scientists to use artificial intelligence in the spacecraft’s software.
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“Spacecraft like Voyager are in interstellar space, outside our solar system, and if they encounter another spacecraft, they can learn how to communicate with that spacecraft in real time,” Nelson said. “That’s what we do at NASA. They make the impossible possible. We have a group of wizards here.”
