City team aims to make mark in race to colonize Moon

For years, man has been pushing the envelope in exploring space and the possibilities of finding or sustaining life elsewhere. And three young space enthusiasts from Bengaluru are looking at doing their bit in the race to make human sustenance a possibility on the Moon by 2025 —the deadline that the International Space Station has set for colonizing Earth’s satellite.
Space exploration is a subject of interest for Keerthivardhan M Joshi, his twin brother Harshavardhan and their school pal, Aditya Bujurke, (all three of whom work for the National Aerospace Laboratories) who participated in the

Lab2Moon

global competition for young minds (U-25) run by

Team Indus

— the city-based group that is sending a rover to the Moon — to imagine, design and build a project that would catalyze the evolution of mankind as a sustainable multi-planetary species. One of the 25 selected experiments will find a place on Team Indus’ Moon mission.
“The three of us have a flair for aerospace, which is why we have also made it our profession. When we came across the competition, the scale seemed exciting. Our first thought was that we keep hearing about advancements and breakthroughs in space, and all we do is read about it in newspapers. We thought, why not become a part of such a success story. This competition seemed the perfect opportunity for us,” says Keerthi.
The challenge was to come up with a reliable model that is in sync with the objectives of the competition and make it airworthy, and once they figured that out, the trio, who dubbed their initiative

The Lunar Leap

, believed that they had a good shot at the finals. “Our initial ideas required more room in terms of budget and power and we realized that it is tough to manage an experiment that meets the objective and is among the best. In fact, all the other shortlisted teams have amazing ideas. Keerthi adds, “We are trying to send samples of animals called

tardigrades

to the Moon. They are no bigger than 0.5 mm and have famously been used in space experiments before. NASA has already tried experiments with them on space stations, considering their ability to survive extreme conditions without food and water. But they had the liberty to bring back the samples and test them on Earth. This was an area that we wanted to plug. Since they were tested in the space station, there was only the effect of radiation and temperature fluctuations. Also, at a space station, there is zero gravity, whereas the Moon has micro-gravity — 1/6th of that of the earth’s. We wanted to test for this parameter as well, along with others that can help biologists in the long run. What aided our belief in this approach was a study that these animals can be potential radiation shields,” Keerthi explains.

In the past, experiments with tardigrades had samples rehydratred on Earth, while Keerthi and his team are looking at doing the same on the surface of the Moon.
“This is not a retrievable mission. Assuming that our experiment makes it to the Moon, and some manned mission in the future rehydrates them and these organisms revive, that can positively contribute to the Panspermia theory of life origin. It is a hypothesis and someone needs to prove it. If we succeed in proving this, it will be our biggest USP,” he signs off.