What has mankind gained from exploring space? Are there deadly microbes in the space lab?
487663
As far as I know there has been no extraterrestial life found so I doubt there are deadly microbes in space labs (if there are then they're of Earth origin).\n\nAs for what we gained from exploring space.  We are the first civilisation that actually manages to do a half-decent job predicting the weather (sure, they get it wrong sometimes but a lot less often than they used to).  We are also the first that has seen our planet from the outside, the first to photogrpah the entire globe and the first to build a GPS system.\n\nHad we not wanted to explore space we wouldn't have those.\n\nWe also have knowledge of the dangers that space presents, both to us on Earth and to any satellites we put into space.\n\nMost importently we have knowledge of other planets that no one in any civilisation that came before ours could dream of knowing.  Whilst the spin-offs from space programmes such as communications satellites, GPS, asteroid detection, environmental monitoring, etc is enough to justify space exploration I think the biggest thing we have gained is knowledge (and hopefully a little humility at the fact that the universe just doesn't care about us).
918263
They have been and will be... meteors and other foreign objects entered earth have some microbes in it. Some would survived along the way if they could withstand the burning heat as they hit the earth's atmosphere.
87341
Short answer:\n\nUnmanned space exploration is more cost effective, efficient, and lower risk. We can always build new robots, and we can send them over longer distances than people (at least initially).\n\nManned space exploration would have a better chance to capture public support. A human mind in control of a space mission might see or intuit things a computer guided sensor might not, and it might react creatively in an emergency. Ultimately, we'll place more value on manned spaceflight. We've already put robots on Mars, but the first human on Mars will be a much bigger deal. Sending humans through space safely seems to be one of the goals of space exploration.
524151
The idea that life could, or even does, exist on Mars has a long history. In 1877 the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli claimed to have seen a planet-wide system of channels (Italian canali). The American astronomer Percival Lowell then popularized these faint lines as canals and held them out as proof of a vast attempt by intelligent beings to irrigate an arid planet. Subsequent spacecraft observations have shown that there are no canals on Mars, and various other alleged proofs of life on the planet have turned out to be equally illusory. The dark areas once thought to be oases are not green, as contrast effects had made them seem to terrestrial observers, and their spectra contain no evidence of organic materials. The seasonal changes in the appearance of these areas are not due to any vegetative cycle, but to seasonal Martian winds blowing sterile sand and dust. Water probably occurs only as ice on and below the surface and as trace amounts of vapour or ice crystals in the Martian atmosphere. The strongest evidence against the presence of life, however, is the thinness of the atmosphere and the fact that the surface of the planet is exposed not only to lethal doses of solar ultraviolet radiation but also to the chemical effects of highly oxidizing substances (such as hydrogen peroxide) produced by photochemistry.\n\nPerhaps the most fundamental and far-reaching result obtained by the Viking landers is that the Martian soil contains no organic material (there is no reason to assume that the two landing sites are not representative of the planet as a whole). Although small amounts of organic molecules are continually being supplied to the surface of Mars by carbonaceous meteoroids, this material is apparently destroyed before it has a chance to accumulate. The results of the soil analysis for organic molecules carried out by the Viking landers provide no evidence for the existence of life.\n\n Answering the question of life on Mars will probably involve...returning [samples] to Earth  \n\nA more difficult question is whether life has ever existed on Mars, given the strong evidence of climatic change and the indications of a previously warmer, thicker atmosphere. Suggestions that structures found in a meteorite discovered in Antarctica, which may have been blasted off the Martian surface, were fossil traces of bacteria-like organisms have since been discounted. However, answering the question of life on Mars will probably involve collecting carefully selected subsurface samples and returning them to Earth for detailed analysis. NASA has proposed a manned expedition to Mars early in the 21st century.
491458
I think that we're going to be responsible for putting life on other planets, Mars and the Moon so far.  Because...before there was humans there were tiny things called bacteria.  When we walked on the moon I'm sure we transfered some onto the rocks and it will evolve, when we put the rover on mars, I'm sure there were probably some germs that transfered onto the mars rocks and they will evolve too...it will take lots of time and will not happen in our lifetime, but eventually...it will
135255
Well for one, to better man kind. Space Stations are the first step to explore the universe around us and discovering more about who we are and what else is out there.\n\nAlso space makes a great place for scientific research and expierements.
1038371
space research is just a research to locate more speific life beyond our planet. However the people do not care about whats happening in our planet. Diseases are spreading killing almost a million or more each year, and economic losses due to spending money on useless things rather then useful things like charity or helping the homeless kids in all parts of the world. Africa and India is mainly homeless children, where at least a child dies every sec due to diseases or other serious conditions. Money is the only thing that could buy these children homes and food n other basic needs of life then people should be helping not spending money on space research where they are not helping anybody with anything. First they consider saving their own planet then beyond the planet. thats all =)
1101394
They found fossilised bacteria on mars a few years ago, while bacteria may not be intelligent combine that with the fact that the surface of mars look like it once contained water and they think that is may once have been habital. But apart from all that I don't think any scientist actually 'believe' theres any other life out there.
247159
NASA's programs bring many advances in the areas of miniaturization (making things smaller), robotics, materials development and software.  Many medical and technological advances are based on things developed for the space program.  For example, some compression algorithms used for Internet traffic are based on algorithms written to transfer data from the damaged Galileo probe.\n\nOn the negative side, a lot of money is spent in ways that can be seen as inefficient government bureaucracy, sometimes with little success (i.e. lost space probes, the limited science value of the space station).  Some consider the probes that are being sent to other planets then abandoned when they stop functioning to be interplanetary litter, some of which contains very small quantities of radioactive materials.
1148300
All space garbage should be recycled and composted into an ecosystem. Thats the complicated set of chemistry questions that goes wtih that particular problem.\n\nUsing large enough diameters and centripetal force we can generate strong enough and stable enough pseudo\ngravity to compensate for that problem. A chemical problem with a civil engineering fix.
238901
Yes it is true.Just watched a program on national geographic about the unknown deep blue of our oceans and seas.Space has had so many explorations now that we are closer to the outer limits of our solar system than ever before.
234059
Of course there is.  You would have to be crazy to think we're the only ones in the universe and the parallel universes, and so on.  They found rust on Mars, which means there was water - therefore leading to the conclusion of life on Mars.  If there was life on Mars, you better believe there's some kind of lifeform billions and trillions of light years away.  No life was discovered yet because we haven't built rockets that are capable of taking us to the destinations of where we haven't discovered yet.
119041
Yes - we learnt that there was no cheese in the moon or that there were no green men in mars.\n\nJokes apart - improvements in space travel - hs helped in improving sea going vehicles (submarines etc) also treatment of paraliysed people, also treatment of muscle atrophied etc...\n\nalso the satelite age heraled the ability for us all to better predict weather changes and also determine where the next oil deposit could well be...etc\n\nso you need to look at it all in the context of the benefits of space travel...so yes its important...\n\nand the money spent is well spent
1155065
anything that involves testing human diseases. it is illegal to test on humans so they use lab rats... it's always expirimental because they can't practice on the people... \n\nhow about...  cloning?  ... stem cells from aborted fetuses as genetic material to replace organs? .... monkey sex in space? .... effects of radiation on desert life in nevada?.... military anything... oh my, how about our own lives?  i do expirimental research on my own life every day.
51387
i got your point... truly when stars like X35 or YR463 (i don't know if they exist) were discovered it wasn't as if aids suddenly had a cure or it became possible for us to live a hundred years longer or that we can already live in mars... clearly discoveries about outer space don't benefit us directly. In fact , the only things it benefits directly are the oppurtunity-hogging world powers and the greedy curiousness of their scientists. It is however also true that because of the discoveries of the past, we are now more technologically advance and a step closer to other fundamental questions that will benefit the whole human race in the future. You see, it is very possible that the gains of prolific discoveries of today will not be felt by the present generation thats why people think that it is pointless. It may not help us now, but having the knowledge that these discoveries will ensure positive effects to the lives of our children and the future generation will make it all priceless.
337198
- Alien Attack/invasion/Genocide and enslavement of the Human race\n\nGood Socialogical experiment.  It would be interesting to be part of the study.
869237
According to a news release published by the Science Daily News, on December 18, 2002, large volumes of air from the stratosphere at heights ranging from 20 to 41km were collected on January 21, 2001. Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe of Cardiff University organized the analysis of the samples in the UK.\n\nAt the end of 2002, a team of biologists at Cardiff University's School of Biosciences reported evidence of viable bacteria in air samples at 41km in such quantity that implied a worldwide settling rate of one ton of bacterial material per day. Dr Milton Wainwright of Sheffield University's Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology isolated a fungus and two bacteria from one of the space derived samples collected at 41km. The presence of bacteria in these samples was then independently confirmed. These results were published in this month's issue of a prestigious journal of microbiology, FEMS Letters (Wainwright et al, 2002), published by Elsevier. The isolated organisms are very similar to known terrestrial varieties. There are however notable differences in their detailed properties, possibly pointing to a different origin. Furthermore, it should be stressed that these microorganisms are not common laboratory contaminants. \n\nIn the recent years, the discovery of microorganisms in the stratosphere has led to the proposal of modern Theory of Panspermia. This theory states that the Earth was seeded in the past, and is still being seeded, with microorganisms from comets.\n\nThere are many different life forms in the universe. In the December 16 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a research team reveals that Lake Vida in Antarctic may represent a previously unknown ecosystem, a frigid, "ice-sealed," lake that contains the thickest non-glacial lake ice cover on Earth. This lake has water seven times saltier than seawater. Because of the arid, chilled environment in which it resides, scientists believe that the lake may also offer clues to likely environments for finding signs of ancient, Martian, microbial life. A member of the research team, Peter Doran of the University of Illinois at Chicago said, "Mars is believed to have had a water rich past and if life developed, a Lake Vida-type ecosystem may have been the final niche for life on Mars before the water bodies froze solid."