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From the Executive Director

Working Together to Learn About Life

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Click to enlarge > Louis D. Friedman Executive Director of The Planetary Society Credit: The Planetary Society

September 3 , 2008

Our Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment (LIFE) is getting a lot of positive attention from our members and supporters. To those who donated to help us reach our goal, thank you; and to all our members, I hope you are as proud as I am to be part of an organization that boldly sends life where no one has before: on an interplanetary trip!

Projects like LIFE is what makes The Planetary Society special: as our motto states "we make it happen." This time we are sending a privately-financed, citizen's experiment on a three-year journey through deep space to test the theory of transpermia -- life transferring between worlds.

Our experiment will fly on board Phobos-Grunt -- an ambitious Russian mission designed to fly to Mars' moon Phobos and bring samples back to Earth. The spacecraft must go into Mars orbit, rendezvous with Phobos, land on its surface, sample the soil, capture the sample, take off with the return vehicle, fly back to Earth, de-orbit the return capsule, and land safely. In addition, the mission will deliver a Chinese spacecraft into Mars orbit and may carry a small technological lander that will stay on the surface of Phobos for additional in-situ observations and measurements. Meanwhile, with all this to accomplish, the mission will also be carrying our very own LIFE container -- a first-of-a-kind experiment in astrobiology.

Phobos-Grunt is scheduled to launch in 2009, but -- like many space mission schedules -- the launch could slip to the next opportunity. This would be in 2011.

Russian space scientists and engineers have the know-how and experience to conduct such a complex mission. They are, after all, the only ones to ever accomplish an automated sample return from another world, and they are the only ones who have conducted a mission to Phobos. Those missions took place decades ago, and, sadly, Russia has never gone beyond Earth orbit since. Nevertheless, it is remarkable that they have maintained their interest in Phobos, despite all the changes in their country, and that they have initiated this sample return mission with many of the same spacecraft team members that worked on that Phobos mission in the late 1980s!

With the recent news about Russia, some have questioned our collaboration on Phobos-Grunt. We share concerns about the political landscape and human rights, but, we also believe that exploring space together encourages cooperation and promotes world peace.

We have experience with such cooperation during times of political tension. Right after Apollo -- at the height of the cold war -- the U.S. and the then-U.S.S.R. worked together on the Apollo-Soyuz flights. The project was a "gap-filler" for both countries' space programs, but the collaboration also promoted peaceful coexistence between the two super-powers. The situation is not dissimilar today -- with Soyuz flights being a gap-filler while the U.S. is building a new rocket for human exploration beyond Earth orbit.

The U.S. gained a lot when, along with its international partners, it invited Russia to join the International Space Station (ISS) in the mid-1990s. The ISS is a remarkable achievement -- one of the greatest international projects ever. Moreover, the resiliency provided by the Russian transportation system to service the ISS has been most valuable. After the 2010 retirement of the space shuttle, the ISS partners will rely completely on Russia's transportation system for at least five years. Without Russia's access to the station, the ISS would have to be abandoned.

Of course, The Planetary Society's cooperation with Russia is not on the scale of America's, Europe's, or Japan's -- we're simply piggybacking 100 grams of life on an interplanetary spacecraft. Nevertheless, working together on inspiring exploration projects can provide a strong foundation that outlasts the ups and downs of international relations. And, looking at the bigger picture, nations coming together to understand more about life in the universe might just change our perspective on today's political situations.

Comments? We welcome your opinions on this subject. Send us email!