Page 29 - 201007 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - July 2010

July 2010_june_july_2009.qxd 31/07/2010 10:53 AM Page 29 E.T., Phone Here 29 E.T., Phone Here Reason’s last step is to recognize that there is an intended to ensure that no dangerous infinite number of things which surpass it. contaminants or unknown alien life forms Continued from Page 28 Reason is simply feeble if it does not go as far escaped to threaten Earth's biosphere, even as as to realize that. If natural things surpass it, researchers began carrying out biological Conway Morris teaches both evolutionary what will we say about supernatural things? experiments with the lunar regolith. biology and earth sciences at Cambridge Any planetary protection fears faded University, which gives him a double expertise ABOUT THE AUTHOR: quickly as the first studies showed that plants in this debate. (He is also a practicing Christian Edward T. Oakes, S.J. teaches theology did not wither and die from contact with lunar and gives Richard Dawkins a scorching blast of at the University of St. Mary of the Lake,the samples. well-deserved criticism in his book). seminary for the Archdiocese of Chicago. His About 35 plant species remained in good According to him (and numerous others article “Pascal: The First Modern Christian” health after lunar samples from the Apollo 11 cited by Webb), Jupiter’s position and size are appeared in the August/September 1999 issue of and 12 missions had been rubbed onto the crucial, enabling it to serve as a kind of First Things. leaves and placed at their base. Similarly, deflector shield to keep most asteroids and animals did not suffer from any ill effects during comets from hammering away at earth on a Space farms could mine exposure to lunar samples. regular basis. Moreover, the moon had to come In fact, one study found that germinated into being with only this mass and this orbit in minerals from moon dirt seedlings and plant cultures seemed to enjoy order to stabilize earth’s own rotation around its Space.com nutritional benefits from the lunar samples. The current tilted axis, which of course has to be lunar dust and regolith contained certain tilted “just so” to allow the right weather elements useful for plant growth, such as iron, fluctuations to permit life. And how likely is Future manned missions to the moon or magnesium and manganese, even if it mostly that to be replicated elsewhere? these authors Mars could use plants as bio-harvesters to lacked necessary elements such as nitrogen, rhetorically ask. extract valuable elements from the alien soils, phosphorus, sulfur and potassium. Webb concludes his book—after researchers say. That pointed to the possibility of using covering far more options than I have outlined Now they hope to launch new plants to biologically harvest nutrients or here—by insisting that we are indeed alone. experiments to follow up on tests done with minerals from the Moon, and suggested that Myself, I’m rather agnostic on the debate and plants and lunar regolith during NASA's Apollo lunar farms could contribute to life-support can identify with W. H. Auden’s chipper cleric program that landed men on the moon. beyond just feeding astronauts. “In one in his poem “Letter to Lord Byron”: Lunar regolith is a loose mixture of dust, interesting model put out a few years ago, plants soil, broken rock and other related materials that would live in low-pressure pods on the surface,” At least my modern pieces shall be cheery lie on top of solid bedrock. The Apollo-era Ferl said. “Astronauts or lunar colonists would Like English bishops on the Quantum Theory. research showed that returned lunar samples of go out in pressure suits to capture them.” the regolith did not have toxins or contain alien The plants may have survived and even I can’t claim, though, that Webb’s life-form contaminants that could threaten thrived a small sprinkling or rubbing of lunar conclusion is all that “cheery,” but it sure is plants, animals or humans on Earth. material, but researchers say many unknowns awesome—in both senses of awesome: filling Yet limited use of the precious lunar remain after the last lunar soil experiments that us with both awe and dread. This is the kind of regolith meant that scientists could not study took place 30 years ago. feeling Pascal was referring to in his Pensées, how well plants fared when grown in regolith. For instance, none of the Apollo-era where he said: “The eternal silence of these “In spite of the fact that we absolutely experiments examined how lunar material infinite spaces terrifies me.” (This line, which is admire the innovative science done in the affected the microorganisms such as bacteria or said by French critics to be the most beautiful Apollo era, the question of whether a plant fungi that normally assist plants in harvesting sentence ever coined in the French language, could grow if you plop a seed in lunar regolith nutrients. Even microbes from human and one that is supposed to be memorized by hasn't been answered,” said Robert Ferl, a astronauts might interact with the plant roots in every French schoolchild, should perhaps be geneticist at the University of Florida in the region of soil known as the rhizosphere. cited here in its French original too: Le silence Gainesville. “You have the colonization of the plant éternel de ces espaces infinis m’effraie.) Ferl and Anna-Lisa Paul, another roots by a host of organisms that break down Whether Pascal was speaking in his own geneticist at the University of Florida, hope to and transport materials,” Paul said. person here may be doubted, since there are pick up where the Apollo-era experiments left “These things facilitate the harvesting of indications that he was writing up a draft for a off. molecules from the substrate in which the plant kind of Dialogue Concerning Religion in the Renewed research could take advantage is growing.” manner of David Hume but died before he could of the powerful tools developed in the past New experiments don't need to wait for shape his randomly collected thoughts into several decades for studying molecular biology a return trip to the Moon, according to the coherent form. At all events, he certainly and genetics, and see how plants react on a researchers. They already have plans that would anticipates later existentialists when he (or his molecular level by turning on or off their genes require just a few grams of the hundreds of fictive dialogue partner) says: in response to regolith. kilograms of lunar regolith collected by NASA. New studies could also push the Just one gram of lunar regolith could When I consider the short span of my life potential shown in how plants apparently support the growth of several Arabidopsis plants absorbed into the preceding and subsequent derived some nutrients from lunar regolith. That related to cabbage and radish, Paul pointed out. eternity, . . . the small space I fill, and even the could go beyond the dreams of lunar agriculture That model organism represented the first plant little I can see beyond that, swallowed up in the to transform plants into planetary harvesters, to have its genome sequenced, and so would infinite immensity of spaces of which I know and ultimately help sustain human bases on provide a great baseline for lunar biology nothing and which knows nothing of me, I am alien soil. experiments. terrified, and surprised to find myself here “It's not just about using lunar and Mars Such testing concepts could also rather than there. For there is no reason why I regolith to grow plants,” Paul explained. “It's become part of experiments done on the Moon should be here rather than there, why now about capturing nutrients that might otherwise itself, whenever a human base does get rather than then. Who put me here? On whose be lost to us.” established. Those experiments would not only orders and on whose decision have this place The review study of Apollo-era plant answer questions about basic plant biology, but and this time been allotted to me? experiments was detailed in the April issue of also provide the seeds of knowledge for the journal Astrobiology. developing ecology off of Earth. If Pascal sounds skeptical in this passage and at NASA took great precautions with More Earth experiments also could help a loss for answers to his own questions, he samples returned during the first manned engineers and scientists better design future really isn’t. For he is trying to get us to ask these missions to the Moon by building the Lunar orbital or extraterrestrial farms. same questions in order to bring us to this Receiving Lab (LRL) at the Johnson Space fundamental insight: Center in Houston. The LRL facility's design (Continued on Page 40)