The first research tended suborbital flight
NASA is giving scientists the chance to conduct experiments and research on suborbital flights, like Blue Origin’s New Shepard capsule through its Flight Opportunities program, and one scientist is gearing up for the ride of his life.
University of Florida’s distinguished professor and assistant vice president for research, Rob Ferl, will make his journey from West Texas to beyond the boundary of space, where he’ll experience microgravity and view the Earth from a new perspective.
But it’s not a joy ride for Ferl. He’s conducting an experiment that could one day help scientists better understand how humans could survive and thrive in space.
“I'll be able to test what happens, in this case, to the cells of a plant during the ascent phase under high G,” Ferl said. “Then I'll collect samples again after the microgravity portion is over and capture samples again after we return to Earth. For the first time, we'll be able to have sub sampled the various portions of entry into space and returned from space.”
Ferl is confident his research will help him understand the bigger question of how space impacts the human body and living Earth organisms.
“For me, as a biologist, I'm also interested in understanding what are the limits of life as we know it here on Earth,” Ferl said. “I'd like very much to understand the adaptive process that happens to an organism basically any terrestrial organism as it rides a rocket into space.”
In addition to preparing to conduct his research in space, Ferl has been preparing for the mental journey.
“It's enlightening,” Ferl said. “It’s comforting even to hear the personal feelings that others have dealt with on their way to and back from space. The other thing we've done is we've engaged sports psychologist…imagine yourself being an Olympic gymnast. I can imagine they have a short period of time in which to derive enormous focus to do incredibly important physical tasks, while also being able to step back for at least a few seconds and appreciate where they are and what they're doing.”
Jupiter and Saturn’s moon mysteries
Millions of miles away in our solar system are two freezing moons with vast oceans beneath their surface.
On Saturn’s moon Enceladus and Jupiter’s moon Europa, scientists think that amino acids may exist beneath their surfaces.
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Alexander Pavlov led a research paper about these moons. He said that microbiological life exists, but to uncover that evidence, future missions would need to drill through the icy surfaces to see the microbiological life.
“We are confident there are for these particular moons,” Pavlov said. “On Enceladus, we actually see the liquid water shooting from the South Pole. On Europa, there’s evidence for the plumes shooting water out but it's much more sporadic. But from the magnetic field measurements, we know that there has to be a liquid ocean—So essentially, you have two ocean worlds life as we know it require liquid water so that in itself by itself, make those moons a prime target for life search.”
On the surface, the terrain of the two moons appears to be inhospitable. But, Pavlov said his research has led him to believe that under the surface could be a world full of microbiological life.
“We have plenty of life in Antarctica on the glacier lakes,” Pavlov said. “There is life deep in the ocean, which has barely any light whatsoever. If you see it on the surface life, as we know it will have troubles, but once you go deep in the ocean under the shell, there's plenty of terrestrial microorganisms, which can handle it.”
