Penelope Boston
Penelope Boston
Penelope J. Boston is a speleologist. She is associate director of the National Cave and Karst Research Institute in Carlsbad, New Mexico, and founder and director of the Cave and Karst Studies Program at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro. Among her research interests are geomicrobiology of caves and mines, extraterrestrial speleogenesis, and space exploration and astrobiology generally...
bias both caves experience great home natural organisms original overall personal places preserve serve
My overall fossil-hunting bias is heavily weighted to natural caves and fissures and overhangs. I know from personal experience how these environments serve as both original home for organisms and as great places to preserve the evidence.
biology caves excited huge looking material minerals rich role traces
I'm particularly excited about the sulfate results...because so much of the material we are looking at is in sulfur rich caves where gypsum and other sulfate minerals play a huge role in the biology and the subsequent preservation of traces of that biology.
aiming carry cell fuel power small study surface
The instruments to study the surface would be different that if you were aiming at a lava tube. They have to be big enough to carry the kind of fuel cell that can power their systems, but not be too small that they get wedged into everything.
detection devices kinds life moon planet solid surface
I want to try and get into those kinds of places. It's very important to make devices for life detection on Mars, for example. ... Any planet or moon with a solid surface will do.
conditions course earliest finding lead questions scope
The scope of the course is really enormously broad, from the earliest conditions that can lead to life, to higher-level questions about finding intelligent life.
bounce caves rugged size technology test testing tube unique
I think we'll come out of this with unique technology and units that we can test in the lava tube caves here. We've already done some testing to look at the size of the units and how they would bounce on a rugged surface.
adequate seven six
With adequate funding, we think we could do this in six or seven years.
earth looking study
We'll be looking at Earth from the outside, looking at how we study our own planet.