Sending germs to space
From the “what could possibly wrong?” file, the Planetary Society will be sending germs to the Red Planet. Or at least to the neighborhood. The experiment will be piggybacked on the Phobos-grunt probe, which will orbit Mars, touchdown on Phobos (one of Mars’ two tiny moons), and then come home with the dirt. Comic book writers are probably salivating at the prospect of radioactive moondirt and germs landing back on Earth. More at the Phobos-Grunt mission home, and at the LIFE Experiment: Phobos home page.
