Research

Tardigrade Organism Research:

A tardigrade full of eggs.

The tardigrade is an amazing organism with the ability to survive in a multitude of extreme environments. This means it is classified as an extremeophile. The tardigrade can be found in a multitude of locations including:

• Common backyard moss.
• Lichens on trees in forests.
• Hot springs.
• Salt water tidal pools.
• Freshwater springs.
• Antarctica.
• Petrified wood and amber.

These areas are places where tardigrades can be found in there animated. Tardigrades can be found in numerous even more extreme environments in their dehydrated hibernation state.

Tardigrades are able to undergo a process called cryptobiosis. This means they dehydrate themselves and slow their metabolic rate to nearly nothing. This allows them to survive extreme conditions and wait out droughts and other natural disasters. They can reanimate themselves after any amount of time.

There are a few different kinds of cryptobiosis including:

• Anhydrobiosis- Extreme form of desiccation. Nearly all water leaves the tardigrades body.
• Cryobiosis- Occurs when temperatures are very cold. The organism will align water molecules in a certain way inside of its body.
• Osmobiosis- Occurs when the surrounding water or soil is so salty all water is stripped from the tardigrade.
• Anoxibiosis- This occurs when the tardigrade is deprived of oxygen. This causes the tardigrade to enter a rigamortis state, freezing the tardigrade in a position.

Life Span-
The tardigrade lives approximately 1 year without any form of cryptobiosis.
The tardigrade lived a maximum of 120 years with cryptobiosis.

How To Harvest Tardigrades-
Tardigrades can be found in most mosses on trees in New Jersey. Mike Shaw, one of Project Stratobear's mentors, researched tardigrades in New Jersey. He concluded they tardigrades can be found in every county.


Tardigrade Summary-
The tardigrade is an extremely interesting and diverse animal. Project Stratobear hopes to support the notion that it may have originated from outer space. This would support the Panspermia Hypothesis, which I will discuss in the following paragraphs.

Panspermia Hypothesis Research:

Basic Summary-

The Panspermia Hypothesis states that life or the building blocks of life can be transferred from one planet to another via asteroids, meteorites, planetoids, and interstellar dust.

What That Means-

That means that either the basic building blocks of life (DNA, proteins, lipids, etc.) or actual life (micro-organisms) can travel from planet to planet via cosmic collisions.

Supporters-

Numerous scientists believe that Panspermia is possible it has never been proven to have actually occurred. A few studies on meteorites showed "proof" of extra terrestrial life, but these studies are poorly documented and many are skeptical of the validity of the statement.

"Life could spread from planet to planet or from stellar system to stellar system, carried on meteors." -Stephen Hawking

Importance to the Space Industry-

Proving or supporting the Panspermia Hypothesis will generate massive public attention to the space industries. Even if this attention is short lived it still will have an impact on space support for emerging companies like SpaceX.

Hull Design Research:

The research to complete this project would be based upon this extremely simple design. This design shows a construction that would complete all specs assuming no limits were in place. From this design the final products research could be conducted, changing different parts to adhere to the limits that Project Stratobear would have. This allows the team to break down the larger system into separate parts for research and refinement.

This is a simple high altitude probe designed to record video of the curvature of Earth. Its main features are a large curved glass window and simplistic design.

Another simple design. This probe carried a Raspberry Pi micro-controller board to measure and record different atmospheric conditions.

This is a Soyuz landing capsule, designed to return cosmonauts and astronauts to Earth from the International Space Station.

This is Strato-Cat a scientific research balloon with a large payload and nearly cubical shape.

Hull Summary

The images above show different designs for hull structures of upper atmospheric and space vehicles. These will be used for inspiration when designing the projects probe. Each vehicle exhibits different properties and benefits to certain missions. Figure one is an enclosed camera used for simple video recording. The figure two is of the Apollo 13 re-entry capsule. This design has a rounded bottom to act as heat shielding.  Figure three shows a micro-controller designed to record atmospheric conditions. Figure four shows a Russian Soyuz landing vehicle. This design incorporates landing legs. The final picture is of a large weather balloon probe designed to record upper atmospheric conditions and film video.