Earthsky Interviews
Private: Drilling in Canada aids martian life search
June 14, 2005 - Space
_DB:_ Mars is extremely cold, dry and bathed in ultraviolet radiation. But below the surface, it may be warmer and wetter – a perfect home for microbes. Robots or human explorers might someday drill into Mars in search of life. Lisa Pratt is a geologist at Indiana University. She’s part of a team that’s starting to drill below a mine in the Canadian arctic.
_Lisa Pratt:_ . . . And that’s where we hope we can get experience drilling through materials that are a mixture of rocky and icy and slushy materials that would give us an experience similar to what we might encounter on Mars . . .
_JB:_ Pratt says there are some potential hazards to working in mines such as cave-ins and toxic gases.
_Lisa Pratt:_ It sounds a little crazy at first, but when you think about it, it’s really no different than the marine biologists who choose to explore the sea floor in a submersible. They are also taking enormous personal risks, but the safety has been thought through and every consideration has been given that can be given.
_DB:_ Pratt predicts that the first robotic drilling mission on Mars will happen in about 10 to 15 years. With thanks to the “National Science Foundation”:http://www.nsf.gov/, we’re Block and Byrd for Earth and Sky.
“Lisa Pratt”:http://www.indiana.edu/~geosci/people/faculty2.php?n=pratt is the Director of “a NASA astrobiology institute”:http://www.indiana.edu/~deeplife/ made up of researchers from Indiana, Princeton and Tennessee.
“Hazel Barton”:hazel-barton-interview.php?id=8222 is another microbiologist who searches for new microorganisms deep underground. Instead of mines, she searches in caves.
There are several challenges to doing this kind of research in a mine: you have to keep the mine owners happy; you have to get all the equipment there; you have to prevent contamination with surface microbes; and the drill bit can easily seize up if it’s cold and you’re bringing up liquid from below.
Our thanks to:
Lisa Pratt
Gill Fellow College of Arts and Sciences
Professor of Geological Sciences
and Director of NASA’s Indiana-Princeton-Tennessee Astrobiology Institute
University of Indiana