Returning Samples From Space to Earth The race is on to return samples from the moon and Mars. I dislike this race and as I have said many times samples from other moons, objects in space and planets should not be brought to the earth, but should go to an off world location where they can be examined without the chance of contaminating the planet. Once the samples have been found not to pose any type of infection threat, then they can be sent here. It seems the only place we have to do this right now is at a space station. Some people think the Chinese government has already demonstrated their carelessness in dealing with disease and are not happy they are the ones planning to return samples from the moon. It is true we have already brought back moon samples in the past, but things could be different with a different type of rock or a different location. Remember we have found microbes which lived for over 100 million years alive inside rocks on Earth and there could even be older ones still alive. They were hibernating and we don’t know how long they could have lived if we didn’t disturb them. The Chinese lander will land on a location of the moon where they claim no one has ever been before. The area I am talking about is known as the Ocean of Storms in English and its official name is Oceanus Procellarum in Latin. The Chinese are said to be interested in the geology of the area, but could there be another reason for picking that spot? While some scientists think this area was created by a large magma flow, others think there was a collision. If one was to look at articles about this area, they would find there are suspicions by some a city may have existed there in the ancient past. Is just a coincidence or have the Chinese previously noticed this in the past? There are four parts to the Chinese Lunar vehicle. They are an orbiter, landing module, ascending module and reentry module. The robotic rover will drill and also use its robotic arm to collect samples for return. When the mission on the surface of the moon is completed, the ascending module will go back into orbit and dock with the re-entry vehicle transferring its samples to that module and they will be sent back to earth. Lunar samples are probably safe since not only the United States brought some back, but so did the Soviet Union. As most of us know the United States is planning to bring back samples from Mars. First of all, there seems to be a lot of artifacts on the planet which might indicate there was life there at one time. I am talking about intelligent life and if it no longer exists or has been ravaged, it might have been due to a plague. Without first knowing more about the Red Planet it seems foolish to bring back samples without first knowing for sure if there was life on the planet either now or in the past. If we are to believe the areas the United States explored it seems they avoided the most interesting ones, the ones where most of the supposed artifacts exist, such as the area which contains the famous face on Mars and the pyramid. When the face was first discovered it stood out like a sore thumb. In a latter color photo by NASA the face just looked like a pile of mud. Then scientists found out something interesting, the color photo had most of the colors blocked out. Instead of 256 colors which would have revealed the true structure the color photo was only allowed to have 16. Scientists all over the world complained about this and some said this is why the photo looked the way it did. Let me tell you about Japan. NASA has stated Japan is probably NASA’s most important partner in space ventures. It is said to be the most important partner in the Artemis Program to send people back to the moon. Japan has signed an agreement with the US for collaboration in human exploration. They have already collected samples from an asteroid named 25143 Itokawa. The mission was a success and the samples were returned to earth. This may have been a successful mission but returning samples from some asteroid seems very risky to me. Just because we were not infected by some cosmic disease this time is certainly no guarantee the next time won’t be different. The name of that mission was Hayabusa which in English means Peregrine falcon. We are currently waiting for samples to be returned by the Hayabusa 2 mission to Ryugu an asteroid. The Japanese fired a projectile into it and then gathered samples from the debris. If they keep this up will it only be a matter of time before luck runs out for the world. Scientists are finding things like the building blocks for life they believe may be on asteroids so maybe so are microbes and they could be of a type we have never encountered before.
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