Astronaut Alan L. Bean, Lunar Module Pilot For The Apollo 12 Lunar Landing Mission, Holds A Container

Took these pictures in astronomy lab tonight!

John Young

One of 7 ways a trip to Mars could kill you

1) Your rocket could blow up before leaving Earth

Elon Musk’s plan to go to Mars involves strapping a giant spaceship atop the biggest rocket that humanity has ever built. Because any rocket launch basically involves a long, controlled explosion, it’s inherently precarious — no matter how many safety tests are done beforehand. If anything goes wrong, if the explosion gets out of control, the people strapped to that big container of fuel don’t stand a chance.

For context, NASA’s space shuttle program carried 833 passengers between 1981 and 2011. Of those, 14 people died in explosions on two high-profile accidents (Challenger and Columbia), a fatality rate of 1.6 percent. That’s vastly more dangerous than driving and a bit riskier than climbing Mount Everest. (The fatality rate for the Apollo program to the moon was even higher, at 9 percent.)

But, of course, SpaceX would be using newer, more complex, and yet-untested rockets to get to Mars. So it’s tough to say what the actual odds of death would be. Possibly much higher! Note that a couple of SpaceX’s smaller Falcon 9 rockets have either exploded on the launchpad or blown up mid-flight. Engineers and rocket scientists can improve that, but it’s unlikely that the risk will be zero.

SpaceX 2024 Mars Mission

Why Sequencing DNA in Space is a Big Deal

… And How You Can Talk to the Scientists Who Made It Happen

Less than one month ago, DNA had never been sequenced in space. As of today, more than one billion base pairs of DNA have been sequenced aboard the International Space Station, Earth’s only orbiting laboratory. The ability to sequence the DNA of living organisms in space opens a whole new world of scientific and medical possibilities. Scientists consider it a game changer. 

NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, who has a background in genomics, conducted the sequencing on the space station as part of the Biomolecule Sequencer investigation. A small, commercial, off-the-shelf device called MinION (min-EYE-ON), manufactured by Oxford Nanopore Technologies in the UK, was used to sequence the DNA of bacteria, a virus and rodents. Human DNA was not sequenced, and there are no immediate plans to sequence human DNA in space. 

(Image Credit: Oxford Nanopore Technologies)

The MinION is about the size of a candy bar, and plugs into a laptop or tablet via USB connection, which also provides power to the device. The tiny, plug and play sequencer is diminutive compared to the large microwave-sized sequencers used on Earth, and uses much less power. Unlike other terrestrial instruments whose sequencing run times can take days, this device’s data is available in near real time; analysis can begin within 10-15 minutes from the application of the sample.

Having real-time analysis capabilities aboard the space station could allow crews to identify microbes, diagnose infectious disease and collect genomic and genetic data concerning crew health, without having to wait long periods of time to return samples to Earth and await ground-based analysis.

The first DNA sequencing was conducted on Aug. 26, and on Sept. 14, Rubins and the team of scientists back at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston hit the one-billionth-base-pairs-of-DNA-sequenced mark.

Have more questions about how the Biomolecule Sequencer works, or how it could benefit Earth or further space exploration? Ask the team of scientists behind the investigation, who will be  available for questions during a Reddit Ask Me Anything on /r/science on Wednesday, Sept. 28 at 2 p.m. EDT. 

The participants are:

Dr. Aaron Burton, NASA Johnson Space Center, Planetary Scientist and Principal Investigator

Dr. Sarah Castro-Wallace, NASA Johnson Space Center, Microbiologist and Project Manager

Dr. David J. Smith, NASA Ames Research Center, Microbiologist

Dr. Mark Lupisella, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Systems Engineer

Dr. Jason P. Dworkin, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Astrobiologist

Dr. Christopher E. Mason, Weill Cornell Medicine Dept. of Physiology and Biophysics, Associate Professor

“Whipple theory of formation of solar system.”  World Geo-graphic Atlas, A Composite of Man’s Environment. Geography, Geology, Demography, Astronomy, Climatology, Economics. 1953. David Rumsey Historical Map Collection.

When the bass drops

Gimme fuel