Chance of alien life ‘goes to heart’ of space missions, Nasa chief says | US news
The possibility of alien existence is a factor determining how the US space agency plans its missions, a top NASA official says.
Speaking on Sunday, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman told CNN’s Meet the Press that searching for the existence of alien life “is at the heart of a lot of what we do at NASA,” adding: “Our job here is to go out and try to unravel the mysteries of the universe.”
One of the questions, he said, is: “Are we alone? The question might say that this is inherent in each of our scientific endeavors, each of our efforts at discovery.”
Issacman pointed to a potential lunar base at the moon’s south pole that would include telescopes “that will help us continue this massive search.”
But the official limited his comments by claiming that he had been to space twice and “didn’t encounter any aliens there. I didn’t see anything there that suggested we were visited by any intelligent life form.”
But he added: “When you think about it, there are a ton of galaxies out there. Who knows how many star systems are inside each one? I’d say there’s a pretty good chance we’ll find something at some point that will make us think we’re not alone.”
Isaacman’s comments came four days after NASA’s Artemis mission to circumnavigate the Moon, the first lunar mission since 1972. When the four crew members of the Orion spacecraft woke up on Saturday, they were closer to the Moon, at 178,000 miles, than they were to the Earth, at 169,000 miles.
The capsule will orbit the far side of the moon, a milestone that will occur Monday evening, and slingshot toward Earth, where it is expected to arrive Friday.
Nasa said it was able to return the spacecraft’s $30 million titanium vacuum-based Universal Waste Management System (UWMS) toilet to normal operations. The crew had reported a flashing fault light in the system, which required the use of headphones and used suction to separate waste, discharge urine into space, and store fecal matter in canisters for return to Earth.
Addressing the issue on Sunday, Isaacman said: “Throughout the history of human spaceflight, going from Mercury, Gemini, the Apollo program, to the shuttle, to Mir, to Dragon, where I flew to the International Space Station, and of course to Orion, toilet work is almost a bonus ability.”
He added that it’s hard to find a working bathroom among “all the amazing things in the space right now.” “Improving that capability is definitely something we need to work on, I would say we’ve created a lot of backups,” Isaacman said, pointing to different vent lines to drain urine.
“Even when we had some freezing issues with the primary, the secondary was working. So believe me, the astronauts are in good shape right now and were well prepared for this situation,” he said.
