04.17.2023 - Project ALFA
Do you want to help find life on Mars?
My friend Dr. Jan Spacek and his students are building the ALFA Mars (Agnostic Life Finding Association - Mars) project.
The core idea is very simple: drilling for water ice on Mars will be one of the first activities of any sustained operations on Mars. The ALFA experiment is a "bolt-on" instrument that filters and concentrates any genetic polymers found in the subterranean water ice.
The first milestone for ALFA is to prove this instrument on ice here on Earth in a Mars Analog station, they have the active support of The Mars Society and Dr. Robert Zubrin to use the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station to conduct the analog experiment phase.
More resources:
Dr. Jan Spacek's team is attempting to raise $15,000 by May 1st, 2023 in order to get a slot on the 2023 Mission to the Mars Arctic Research Station.
Dr. Charles Cockell an astrobiologist out of my old employer JPL is one of their advisors. The ALFA experiment in the game at Duskworks Landing and will continue to expand on the depth of gameplay around ALFA to further our mission to showcase real science and engineering on Mars and in the Solar System.
Please share this message and consider donating even $5-10, as their goal is very modest and this is a deeply impressive and practical experiment to help answer one of the universe's most fundamental questions - how common is life in the universe and what does it look like?
And if you donate $120 you get a signed copy of Life, the Universe by Steven Benner - one of the best first principles science books I have ever read and a neato box of minerals!