Chance of alien life ‘goes to heart’ of space missions, Nasa chief says | US news
NASA’s top official says the possibility of extraterrestrial existence is a factor in how the US space agency plans its missions.
Speaking on Sunday, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman told CNN’s Meet the Press that investigating the existence of extraterrestrial life “goes to the heart of a lot of things we do at NASA,” adding: “Our job here is to go out and try to unlock the secrets of the universe.” »
One of the questions, he said, is “are we alone? The question would say it’s inherent in every one of our scientific endeavors, our exploration efforts.”
Issacman pointed to a potential lunar base on the moon’s south pole that would incorporate telescopes “that will help us continue this great research.”
But the official qualified his comments, saying he had been to space twice and “didn’t encounter any aliens up there. I didn’t see anything to suggest we were visited by any intelligent life form up there.”
But, he added, “when you think about it, we have 2 trillion galaxies. Who knows how many star systems in each of them? I would say the chances that we will at some point find something to suggest that we are not alone are quite high.”
Isaacman’s comments come four days after the start of NASA’s Artemis mission to circle the Moon, the first lunar mission since 1972. The four crew members of the Orion spacecraft were closer to the Moon, 110,700 miles (178,000 km), than to Earth, 169,000 miles, when they woke up Saturday.
The capsule will loop around the far side of the Moon, a step which will take place Monday evening, and return to Earth where it is expected to arrive on Friday.
On CBS’s Face the Nation, Isaacman said the astronauts were prepared for the communications breakdown that would occur when they circled the moon, saying, “Astronauts are used to this from training.”
He emphasized that for this phase of the mission, the first objective is to collect data from Orion’s life support system.
“This is the first time we have had humans on board the Orion spacecraft,” he said. “We want to gather as much data as possible for this… Learning as much as possible about Orion is critically important.”
The next mission, Artemis III, is expected to launch in mid-2027. Isaacman said. “That’s where we’re going to test the same spacecraft with our lunar landers, followed in 2028 by Artemis IV, where we’re going to use that spacecraft to transfer the crew to the landers and return U.S. astronauts to the surface of the moon.”
NASA said it was able to repair the $30 million titanium vacuum Universal Waste Management System (UWMS) toilet for normal operation. The crew had reported a flashing fault light on the system, which requires the use of headphones and uses suction to separate waste, evacuating urine into space and storing feces in canisters for return to Earth.
Isaacman addressed the issue with CNN on Sunday, saying, “Throughout the history of human spaceflight, from the Mercury program, to Gemini, to Apollo, to the Shuttle, to Mir and the International Space Station, to Dragon, which I flew on, and, of course, Orion, toilet operation is almost an extra capability.” »
He added that among all the “amazing things that exist in space right now,” a functional bathroom remains elusive. “We definitely need to work on that capacity. I will say we’re building in a lot of safeguards,” Isaacman said, pointing to different vent lines to vent urine.
“Even when we had a problem with the primary freezing, the secondary worked. So, believe me, the astronauts, they are fine right now, and they were well prepared for the situation,” he said.
