back to article NASA spacewalkers to swab the ISS for microbial life

Two NASA astronauts are set to venture outside the International Space Station (ISS) in search of signs of life. Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams should have been back on Earth months ago, but, thanks to issues with Boeing's CST-100 Starliner capsule, are spending some additional time on the ISS before a planned return to Earth …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    oh goody

    Great, let's bring back some mutated space bacteria. I see no possible ways this could go badly!

    1. Neil Barnes Silver badge
      Alien

      Re: oh goody

      You are Victor Carroon and I claim my five pounds!

    2. UCAP Silver badge

      Re: oh goody

      They've already brought space bacteria back. The Apollo 12 astronauts brought parts from Surveyor 3 back from the moon where they had been sitting for several years. When scientists looked at the parts they found them contaminated with bacteria leftover from the probes construction. The bacteria were still alive.

  2. Irongut Silver badge

    Who did they piss off at NASA?

    Butch & Sunni get all the shit jobs.

    1. IGotOut Silver badge

      Re: Who did they piss off at NASA?

      It's punishment for saying If it's Boeing, I ain't going" after they arrived.

    2. Sceptic Tank Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: Who did they piss off at NASA?

      "Hands up: who around here knows how to pilot a Starliner?"

      ...

      "Ok. Butch you grab the brooms, Suni you get the buckets. There's some crud building up around the air vents that needs cleaning".

  3. munnoch Silver badge

    "With Mars now a priority for crewed expeditions"

    Did I miss a memo?

    1. heyrick Silver badge

      Re: "With Mars now a priority for crewed expeditions"

      One of Trump's many brain farts.

  4. Duncan Macdonald
    Alien

    Metorites

    The Earth has been hit many times by large meteorites (eg the dinosaur killer). Many of these impacts have been large enough to eject debris from the Earth that could hit other solar system objects.

    Given the toughness of many microbes, other planets must have been contaminated by microbes carried on such Earth originated meteorites.

    It is currently thought that Mars still had liquid water up to around 3 billion years ago. Earth has had life for over 3.7 billion years. This implies a period of several hundred million years when both Earth and Mars could host life. During that period both Earth and Mars would have been hit by many object large enough to eject rocks (with bacterial passengers) to the other planet.

    This leads to an interesting question - did life originate on Earth and contaminate Mars or did it originate on Mars and then contaminate Earth

    The icon seems fitting ==========>

    1. KittenHuffer Silver badge
      Boffin

      Re: Metorites

      For all we know, 3.7 billion years ago a predecessor to oumuamua arrived at Earth and kick started the whole 'life' thing in our solar system.

      There is certainly some conjecture to suggest that this is a viable option.

      And the evidence that simple life can survive a vacuum for periods of time supports this.

    2. David Hicklin Silver badge

      Re: Metorites

      The thing with this theory called Panspermia is that it just moves the problem of how life started to somewhere else....

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    LA Fires

    So LA burns but the priority for the boffins in the US is a manned mission to Mars. Priorities eh?

    1. cray74

      Re: LA Fires

      So LA burns but the priority for the boffins in the US is a manned mission to Mars. Priorities eh?

      Did you also think that someone with a doctorate in English literature should've been relieving overworked doctors in hospitals during COVID's peak?

      The boffins who design aerospace hardware and missions have little to do with firefighting and wild fire risk.

  6. spold Silver badge

    It's life Jim, but not as we know it.

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