NASA Launches Nanosatellite to Study & Monitor ET Life

NASA Launches Nanosatellite to Study & Monitor ET Life

On Friday, a small, 5.5 kilogram propellant-free loaf-of-bread-sized satellite was launched into low earth orbit aboard a United States Air Force rocket. Its mission is to study the origins, evolution, and distribution of life in the universe. The "nanosatellite", called Organism/Organic Exposure to Orbital Stresses (O/OREOS), was developed by NASA and is the first propellant-less small spacecraft to carry two independent science experiments.

"With O/OREOS we can analyse the stability of organics in the local space environment in real-time and test flight hardware that can be used for future payloads to address fundamental astrobiology objectives," said Pascale Ehrenfreund, O/OREOS project scientist at the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, in a NASA press release.

[...]

O/OREOS will be conduct an experiment to characterize the growth, activity of health of microorganisms in a space environment, which includes exposure to radiation and weightlessness. A second experiment monitors the stability and changes in different organic molecules as they are exposed to these space conditions.

Source

This sounds pretty cool, although it's not about aliens in the conventional sense. It's essentially an experiment to see what happens to micoorganisms and organic compounds in space. Although it doesn't explicitly say so in the article, I'm fairly certain that this experiment is being conducted in order to evaluate and better understand the panspermia hypothesis. I thought I would pass it on, it is awesome that astrobiology is becoming a real field of study in our lifetimes.

Thoughts?
On panspermia?
On what they should do next? I'd like to see a nuclear powered robot penetrate the ice on Europa and see if anything is swimming around under there. . .

reply to post by OnceReturned


Oh, yeah, cool, attention grabbing in a small way. That is the way they like it. I call it Back Door Disclosure.

By bits and pieces--even NASA now--is creating a mosaic that is showing by an overwhelming accumulation of scientifice data that other life in the Universe is undenialable even if we don't (wink, wink) see it yet.

In this manner the UFO debunkers are losing a cormer stone of their argument why UFOs can't be here. If it is recognized that life is out there, anywhere, the debunkers will be hard pressed for an rational argument o deny the UFOs.

Anyone that maintains today that only Earth harbors life in the Universe has a serious problem. And of course, many millions if not billions believe that way. It is a natural condition, a human reflex, if you will. But hat hindering belief-- based on not a shred of evidence--is required to be changed before we can expect an orderly transition to a better understanding of ourselves and our place in the Universe. A Front Door Disclosure is never going to happen as it is currently expected by many. But all of the hoopla over it helps by being one of those "bits and pieces" and hurts the general cause not at all.

reply to post by OnceReturned


For those interested in the subject, here's an update:

Nanosatellite Will Look for Alien Worlds

Draper Laboratory and MIT have developed a satellite the size of a loaf of bread that will undertake one of the biggest tasks in astronomy: finding Earthlike planets beyond our solar system—or exoplanets—that could support life. It is scheduled to launch in 2012.

Pretty cool and at a price of only $600,000 (once in production) it's a bargain.

There's also a video included in the article.

Peace