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IN THE NOT-SO-DISTANT-FUTURE
An early Model of the sublimation oven on MOA
Most NSCORT research leaders believe one of the greatest successes of the program has been the extensive training students have received. Joyce believes that NSCORT has helped develop a market for exobiologists. For instance, pharmaceutical companies are interested in former NSCORT students conversant in Joyce's specialty, test-tube "evolution." Other students, such as those from Russell Doolittle's lab at UCSD, have found that the comparative DNA sequence analysis they've been carrying out makes them attractive to firms dealing in genomics. In addition, former members of Bada's and Miller's groups are now researchers at NASA centers such as the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena California, and the Ames Research Center at Moffett Field in California. To date, 86 students have been graduated from the program. "Having that training component is what makes NSCORT unique and that's what I'd like to see continue," Joyce said. "The NSCORT program has trained some extraordinary people." The NSCORT exobiology program is waiting for word from NASA regarding future funding. |
"There will be a discussion whether to continue the NSCORT form of supporting research," said Michael Meyer, NASA Headquarters discipline scientist for astrobiology and exobiology. "Included in the discussion will be whether the recent creation of the NASA Astrobiology Institute could, should, or would take on the NSCORT role of balanced research and training in the interdisciplinary field of exobiology/astrobiology." Bada has detailed the history of the search for the origins of life in a book—The Spark of Life: Darwin and the Primeval Soup, published in 2000—which he co-authored with Christopher Wills at UCSD. He hopes NSCORT survives at least long enough to send MOA off to Mars and to allow enough time to analyze the data the instrument will send back. Then again, it might be enough that the detector project itself survives. MOA was, after all, originally meant to travel on a 2003 mission that was pre-empted, then scrapped altogether.
Features of the Martian surface
"The 2009 launch date is the year of my 67th birthday," Bada said. "I can't think of a better way to celebrate than watching the MOA instrument being launched to Mars and then detecting amino acids once it lands on the surface." |
