A description of how you will be researching your topic.

 

I am designing two experiments to be carried out during the spring 2021 NASA ASCEND launch.

Exposure Experiment:

This experiment is centered around investigating concerns about contaminating Mars with terrestrial microbial life.  Several species of normal flora common to the human body will be selected.  The species have been selected based on numerical population (with a bias towards those of greater number), physiological structure (to examine a variety of microbes), and likelihood of transfer to the Martian environment (easily expelled from the human body).  An additional restriction is non-pathenogenic species such that the facilities at Phoenix College will be sufficient for working with the selected samples.  Some of the species have pathogenic subspecies that are known for causing nosocomial infections, testifying to their ability to be ahead from humans.

The bacteria selected include:

Body Location	Skin	Oral	Gut	Blood
Species	Staphylococcus epidermidis	Neisseria catarrhalis, Candida albicans, diphtheroids	Escherichia coli	Pseudomonas aeruginosa

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7617/

The selected species will be incubated on five TSB plates and grown in ideal conditions, replicating the human body, for a week.  The one of each of the species will have a sample in each the following groups:

Group	Environment	Humidity	Pressure	Temperature	UV radiation
Control Group(CG)	In laboratory incubator	Earth	Earth	Earth	Earth
Desiccant Group (DG)	In laboratory desiccant chamber	Mars	Earth	Earth	Earth
Temperature Group (TG)	In laboratory in freezer	Earth	Earth	Mars	Earth
Environmental Conditions Group (EG)	Stratosphere exposure with no light.	Mars	Mars	Mars	Earth
Environmental Conditions + Exposure Group (E²G)	Stratosphere exposure with light.	Mars	Mars	Mars	Mars

Earth - Earth conditions in regards to the variables in question

Mars - Mars conditions in regards to the variables in question

CG - placed in incubator at 37 degrees C 

DG - placed in desiccator 

TG - placed in freezer

EG - placed on high altitude balloon (HAB) payload, launched to 30km, encased.

E²G - placed on HAB, launched to 30km, attached to top, exposed to sunlight.

The atmospheric conditions selected are based on those that will be sampled during the balloon flight such that accurate data regarding the level and time of exposure will be available.

Post-exposure the samples will be incubated on fresh plates, the resultant growth or lack of growth serving as a metric for determining the resilience of the species to the conditions of exposure.

Collection Experiment: 

This is in someways the reverse experiment.  Collecting particles and bioareosols from the stratosphere and examining them at ground level.  A compartment will constructed in the payload with a rotating door, exposing various chambers within the compartment to the atmosphere for different periods of time to take samples from different altitudes.

The collection medium will be examined with  scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and an attempt to incubate any possible bacteria on fresh plates in an incubator at 37 degrees C.  The later modeling a microbe that survives in Mars like conditions entering the human body.

Due to equipment limitations the payload will not likely be of clean room quality.  Even if there was no contamination Phoenix College does not have clean room facilities with which to examine the filter medium without exposure.

To accommodate this limitation while still taking advantage of the HAB opportunity I will collect ground level particulates, examine them with SEM to create a baseline, uses this baseline to look for unique species in the payload sample.  These results will not be definitive due inability to minimize the possibilities of contamination, but will provide data for future research (possibly narrowing down particular species worth targeting).