Reports of Streptococcus mitis on the Moon

Last updated
Pete Conrad with Surveyor 3 Apollo12ConradSurveyor.jpg
Pete Conrad with Surveyor 3

As part of the Apollo 12 mission in November 1969, the camera from the Surveyor 3 probe was brought back from the Moon to Earth. On analyzing the camera, it was found that the common bacterium Streptococcus mitis was alive on the camera. NASA reasoned that the camera was not sterilized on Earth before the space probe's launch in April 1967, two and a half years earlier. [1] However, later study showed that the scientists analysing the camera on return to Earth used procedures that were inadequate to prevent recontamination after return to Earth, for instance with their arms exposed, not covering their entire bodies as modern scientists would do. There may also have been possibilities for contamination during the return mission as the camera was returned in a porous bag rather than the airtight containers used for lunar sample return. [2] As a result, the source of the contamination remains controversial.

Contents

History

Since the Apollo Program, there has been at least one independent investigation into the validity of the NASA claim. Leonard D. Jaffe, a Surveyor program scientist and custodian of the Surveyor 3 parts brought back from the Moon, stated in a letter to the Planetary Society that a member of his staff reported that a "breach of sterile procedure" took place at just the right time to produce a false positive result. One of the implements being used to scrape samples off the Surveyor parts was laid down on a non-sterile laboratory bench, and then was used to collect surface samples for culturing.Jaffe wrote, "It is, therefore, quite possible that the microorganisms were transferred to the camera after its return to Earth, and that they had never been to the Moon." [3] In 2007, NASA funded an archival study that sought the film of the camera-body microbial sampling, to confirm the report of a breach in sterile technique.

The bacterial test is now non-repeatable because the parts were subsequently taken out of quarantine and fully re-exposed to terrestrial conditions (the Surveyor 3 camera is now on display in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.).

The Surveyor 3 camera was returned from the Moon in a nylon duffel bag, and was not in the type of sealed airtight metal container used to return lunar samples in the early Apollo missions. It is therefore possible that it was contaminated by the astronauts and the environment in the Apollo 12 capsule itself. [1]  

In March 2011, three researchers co-authored a paper titled "A Microbe on the Moon? Surveyor III and Lessons Learned for Future Sample Return Missions" that assessed the validity of claims that the S. mitis samples found on the camera had indeed survived for nearly three years on the Moon. The paper concluded that the presence of microbes could more likely be attributed to poor clean room conditions rather than the survival of bacteria for three years in the harsh environment of the Moon. The paper also discussed the implication this incident would have for contamination control in future space missions. [2] [4]

Countervailing evidence against the secondary contamination hypothesis is the fact that, according to Lieutenant Colonel Fred Mitchell, lead author of the original 1971 paper, [5] there was a significant delay before the sampled culture began growing; this is consistent with the sampled bacteria consisting of dormant cells, but not if the sampled culture was the result of fresh contamination. In addition, according to Mitchell, the microbes clung exclusively to the foam during culturing, which would not have happened had there been contamination. [2] Furthermore, if fresh contamination had occurred, millions of individual bacteria and "a representation of the entire microbial population would be expected"; instead, only a few individual bacteria were sampled, and only from a single species. [5]

This subject was covered in the 2008 Discovery Channel documentary series, When We Left Earth and in the Science Channel series Nasa's Unexplained Files episode Return of the Moon Bugs.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apollo program</span> 1961–1972 American crewed lunar exploration program

The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the United States human spaceflight program carried out by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which succeeded in preparing and landing the first men on the Moon from 1968 to 1972. It was first conceived in 1960 during President Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration as a three-person spacecraft to follow the one-person Project Mercury, which put the first Americans in space. Apollo was later dedicated to President John F. Kennedy's national goal for the 1960s of "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" in an address to Congress on May 25, 1961. It was the third US human spaceflight program to fly, preceded by the two-person Project Gemini conceived in 1961 to extend spaceflight capability in support of Apollo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apollo 12</span> Second crewed Moon landing

Apollo 12 was the sixth crewed flight in the United States Apollo program and the second to land on the Moon. It was launched on November 14, 1969, by NASA from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Commander Charles "Pete" Conrad and Lunar Module Pilot Alan L. Bean performed just over one day and seven hours of lunar surface activity while Command Module Pilot Richard F. Gordon remained in lunar orbit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apollo 14</span> Third crewed Moon landing

Apollo 14 was the eighth crewed mission in the United States Apollo program, the third to land on the Moon, and the first to land in the lunar highlands. It was the last of the "H missions", landings at specific sites of scientific interest on the Moon for two-day stays with two lunar extravehicular activities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apollo 15</span> Fourth crewed Moon landing

Apollo 15 was the ninth crewed mission in the United States' Apollo program and the fourth to land on the Moon. It was the first J mission, with a longer stay on the Moon and a greater focus on science than earlier landings. Apollo 15 saw the first use of the Lunar Roving Vehicle.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apollo 16</span> Fifth crewed Moon landing

Apollo 16 was the tenth crewed mission in the United States Apollo space program, administered by NASA, and the fifth and penultimate to land on the Moon. It was the second of Apollo's "J missions", with an extended stay on the lunar surface, a focus on science, and the use of the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV). The landing and exploration were in the Descartes Highlands, a site chosen because some scientists expected it to be an area formed by volcanic action, though this proved not to be the case.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Surveyor program</span> 1960s NASA program to soft-land robotic probes on the Moon

The Surveyor program was a NASA program that, from June 1966 through January 1968, sent seven robotic spacecraft to the surface of the Moon. Its primary goal was to demonstrate the feasibility of soft landings on the Moon. The Surveyor craft were the first American spacecraft to achieve soft landing on an extraterrestrial body. The missions called for the craft to travel directly to the Moon on an impact trajectory, a journey that lasted 63 to 65 hours, and ended with a deceleration of just over three minutes to a soft landing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Surveyor 7</span> American lunar lander

Surveyor 7 was the seventh and last lunar lander of the American uncrewed Surveyor program sent to explore the surface of the Moon. A total of 21,091 pictures were transmitted to Earth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Surveyor 3</span> American lunar lander

Surveyor 3 was the third lander of the American uncrewed Surveyor program sent to explore the surface of the Moon in 1967. It was the first mission to carry a surface-soil sampling-scoop.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oceanus Procellarum</span> Vast lunar mare on the western edge of the near side of Earths Moon

Oceanus Procellarum is a vast lunar mare on the western edge of the near side of the Moon. It is the only one of the lunar maria to be called an "Oceanus" (ocean), due to its size: Oceanus Procellarum is the largest of the maria ("seas"), stretching more than 2,500 km (1,600 mi) across its north–south axis and covering roughly 4,000,000 km2 (1,500,000 sq mi), accounting for 10.5% of the total lunar surface area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moon landing</span> Arrival of a spacecraft on the Moons surface

A Moon landing or lunar landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. This includes both crewed and robotic missions. The first human-made object to touch the Moon was the Soviet Union's Luna 2, on 13 September 1959.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Planetary protection</span> Prevention of interplanetary biological contamination

Planetary protection is a guiding principle in the design of an interplanetary mission, aiming to prevent biological contamination of both the target celestial body and the Earth in the case of sample-return missions. Planetary protection reflects both the unknown nature of the space environment and the desire of the scientific community to preserve the pristine nature of celestial bodies until they can be studied in detail.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lunar Receiving Laboratory</span>

The Lunar Receiving Laboratory (LRL) was a facility at NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center that was constructed to quarantine astronauts and material brought back from the Moon during the Apollo program to reduce the risk of back-contamination. After recovery at sea, crews from Apollo 11, Apollo 12, and Apollo 14 walked from their helicopter to the Mobile Quarantine Facility on the deck of an aircraft carrier and were brought to the LRL for quarantine. Samples of rock and regolith that the astronauts collected and brought back were flown directly to the LRL and initially analyzed in glovebox vacuum chambers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moon rock</span> Rocks on or from the Moon

Moon rock or lunar rock is rock originating from Earth's Moon. This includes lunar material collected during the course of human exploration of the Moon, and rock that has been ejected naturally from the Moon's surface and landed on Earth as meteorites.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sample-return mission</span> Spacecraft mission

A sample-return mission is a spacecraft mission to collect and return samples from an extraterrestrial location to Earth for analysis. Sample-return missions may bring back merely atoms and molecules or a deposit of complex compounds such as loose material and rocks. These samples may be obtained in a number of ways, such as soil and rock excavation or a collector array used for capturing particles of solar wind or cometary debris. Nonetheless, concerns have been raised that the return of such samples to planet Earth may endanger Earth itself.

Streptococcus mitis is a mesophilic alpha-hemolytic species of Streptococcus that inhabits the oral cavity. It is coccus, gram-positive, catalase negative, and facultative anaerobe. It was previously classified as Streptococcus mitior. Streptococcus mitis is known to cause several medical conditions one of them being infective endocarditis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Third-party evidence for Apollo Moon landings</span> Independent confirmations of Apollo Moon landings

Third-party evidence for Apollo Moon landings is evidence, or analysis of evidence, about the Moon landings that does not come from either NASA or the U.S. government, or the Apollo Moon landing hoax theorists. This evidence provides independent confirmation of NASA's account of the six Apollo program Moon missions flown between 1969 and 1972.

Interplanetary contamination refers to biological contamination of a planetary body by a space probe or spacecraft, either deliberate or unintentional.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility</span> NASA facility in Houston, Texas

The Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility (LSLF) is a repository and laboratory facility at NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, opened in 1979 to house geologic samples returned from the Moon by the Apollo program missions to the lunar surface between 1969 and 1972. The facility preserves most of the 382 kilograms (842 lb) of lunar material returned over the course of Apollo program and other extraterrestrial samples, along with associated data records. It also contains laboratories for processing and studying the samples without contamination.

References

  1. 1 2 "LSDA – Experiment: Surveyor 3 Streptococcus Mitis (APSTREPMIT)". Life Sciences Data Archive. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Archived from the original on 2010-06-19. Retrieved 2011-05-15.
  2. 1 2 3 David, Leonard (2 May 2011). "Moon Microbe Mystery Finally Solved". Space.com . Retrieved 2011-05-15.
  3. ↑ "Apollo 12 Remembered. Lunar Germ Colony or Lab Anomaly?". Astrobiology Magazine. 2004-11-21. Archived from the original on 2006-08-31.
  4. ↑ John D. Rummel, Judith H. Allton, and Don Morrison (2011). "A Microbe on the Moon? Surveyor III and Lessons Learned for Future Sample Return Missions" (PDF). Solar System Sample Return Mission (2011).{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: location (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  5. 1 2 Mitchell, F. J.; Ellis, W. L. (1971). Levinson, A. A. (ed.). "Surveyor III: Bacterium isolated from lunar retrieved TV camera". Proceedings of the second lunar science conference. Cambridge: MIT Press.

PD-icon.svg This article incorporates public domain material from Life Sciences Data Archive (LSDA) – Experiment: Surveyor 3 Streptococcus Mitis (APSTREPMIT). National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.