By Robert Monroe

An instrument born at Scripps could beam back to Earth the first real evidence of life elsewhere in the universe. If it survives an uncertain political climate at home and a harsh, inhospitable environment on Mars, a landing craft bearing this instrument—the Mars Organic Analyzer (MOA)—will touch down on the surface of the Red Planet after a September 2009 launch.

The palm-sized detector will "cook" spoon-sized amounts of Martian dirt and analyze the molecules that will be vaporized in its oven. It will search for amino acids, the molecules that join to form proteins and a key ingredient of life. If MOA finds amino acids, the analysis will continue in an effort to ascertain whether the acids are the kind that could only have been produced biologically.

Jeff Bada, a Scripps marine chemist and MOA's creator, has reason to believe the beamed-back answer will be a "yes." But before the life-on-Mars question is answered, Bada faces the more immediate consideration of an earthly matter: He hopes to keep alive the Scripps-based program called the NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) Specialized Center of Research and Training in Exobiology (NSCORT). Here, scientists have spent the past 10 years investigating the origins of life—whether on Earth, Mars, or elsewhere. The multidisciplinary program has been so successful, however, that NASA might fold it into a larger program.

"NSCORT is such an important element in this discipline of biology," Bada said of the program he currently directs. "You want to keep something that works."