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Published on 12/15/1999 All articles from this issue

NASA speaker gets to the root of life in space

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By Clyde Noel

Special to the Town Crier

While NASA tried to contact the Mars Polar Lander without success on Dec. 7, Jeffrey Smith, deputy director of the Center for Bioinformatics Education at Ames Research Center, talked to members of the Los Altos Kiwanis Club about life in outer space.

"I know you want me to speak about the repeated Martian failures, but, we (Ames) didn't do it." Smith said. "We lost contact on three out of the last five spacecraft sent out of Southern California. The only successful probe was the Mars Pathfinder in 1997, and that came out of the work of Ames Research" in Mountain View.

Smith said bioinformatics is a combination of biology and computer science. Engineers use the computer to study life and then apply the computational results to a project. Most of the experimentation is done through scientific imaging.

"In space there is zero gravity and the muscles of astronauts atrophy because they don't use them," Smith said. "Bone de-mineralizes, and this is a problem for astronauts when they are in space for a long time. When they come back to earth, they are at risk of broken bones." When an astronaut returned to earth from the Russian MIR space station recently, he was in bed for several months.

"At NASA we try to get all the information on muscle atrophy that is possible. We use an MRI scan for 10 to 20 minutes because there is no radiation like a CAT scan." Smith said. "An MRI is a good quantitative tool to determine whether a muscle has deteriorated."

Smith's specialty is plant biology.

"A seed senses gravity when it comes to life and germinates with its roots down," he said. "In space the soil has no gravity so the roots grow up in the air for the light along with the plant and create weird-looking plants. Roots grow all over a plant in aerospace."

In a question-and-answer period, Smith was asked why scientists continue to send probes to Mars and what information they are looking for. "Science is asking this question: Where can we find life in the universe?" Smith said.

"NASA's budget is $13.8 billion a year, which is comparable to the federal budget for law enforcement. Both budgets should be tripled," Smith said, showing his Ames bias. Smith came to Kiwanis through NASA's speakers bureau.

"It's nice to come out and speak to organizations like this because it gets us out from under our rock," he said.