mission culture scientifique et technique

As we continue to seek for evidence of life beyond Earth, two sources of new data come to the fore. The first is our search for places that could support life. Locations where liquids and sources of energy exist have been the focus of NASA’s recent efforts. We’ve found a number of such places in the solar system where these requirements might be met. Recently we’ve begun to identify numerous planets in other solar systems that could, in principle, have liquid water on their surfaces. A second new source of insight into our search for life comes from our own technology development. In particular, the emerging field of synthetic biology suggests that we ourselves and presumably extraterrestrial intelligence could engineer life to exist in much broader ranges of conditions that we find on the Earth’s surface. In this lecture the status of these two developments and their implications for our search for life will be discussed.

Pete Worden is Director of NASA’s Ames Research Center (ARC) at Moffett Field, California. He studied physics and astronomy at Ann Arbor and holds a PhD in astronomy from the University of Arizon, Tucson. Before joining NASA, he held several positions in the United States Air Force and was research professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona, Tucson. He is a recognized expert on space issues – both civil and military and has authored or co-authored more than 150 scientific papers in astrophysics, space sciences, and strategic studies. He served as a scientific co-investigator for two NASA space science missions, and received the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal for the 1994 Clementine mission. He has been named the 2009 Federal Laboratory Consortium Laboratory Director of the Year.

mission culture scientifique et technique

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