2006-06-21 | EDUCATION
NASA Sends Explorer School Teachers 'Spaceward Bound'
NASA is taking a group of school teachers to the Atacama desert in order to inspire the next generation of explorers. The expedition is part of the Spaceward Bound pilot program, which challenges teachers to design and implement real field research. The teachers, along with planetary experts and technologists demonstrating communications and robot rover technology, will study the border between life and sterility in the arid region of the Atacama, which is known for its similarities to the moon and Mars.
The extreme environment of the Atacama Desert not only makes it an excellent test bed for technologies that could be used on Mars missions, but also provides a unique opportunity to study life in an extreme environments on Earth. Understanding life in extreme environments can help scientists determine the potential for past or present life in similar locations in our solar system. In addition, determining the limits of life on Earth can tell us a great deal about what makes a planet habitable.
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from NASA - ARC, Jun 21, 2006
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