Life on Earth on Mars

“We think that if there is life on Mars, it could be related to us,” Massachusetts Institute of Technology engineer and scientist Christopher Carr told Discovery News.

With NASA funding, Carr and colleagues at MIT are developing a prototype device to decode alien DNA, a project known as the Search for Extraterrestrial Genomes (SETG). They hope to fly an instrument as part of a joint NASA-European Space Agency mission to Mars slated to launch in 2018.

…

The idea of looking for transplanted life stemmed from studies of meteorites from Mars that landed on Earth. Mars and Earth have swapped about a billion tons of rock over the years, Carr says, and experiments show that some hitch-hiking microbes can survive the journey.

Hippies in Space!

On Thursday November 4 at the National Press Club the National Space Society (NSS) will reveal a plan for solving the global energy crisis — along with the carbon crisis and America’s jobs crisis: the Kalam-NSS Energy Initiative (Dr. A.P.J. Kalam is the former President of India). This is a visionary, ambitious plan for harvesting solar power in space and beaming it down to Earth, turning America and India into net energy exporters.

Discovery Awaits Final Liftoff

The launch will mark Discovery’s 39th journey, and NASA’s 133rd shuttle mission overall. One final space shuttle launch is scheduled for Feb. 27, 2011, before NASA retires the shuttle fleet for good.