The note-taker for the workshop provides this interpretation of the workshop's key points. Not all who attended the workshop may agree completely with the following, and more information can be found at the Exploring Earth's Extremes Workshop website.   The search for life outside Earth requires interdisciplinary collaboration. The science and technology communities should break agency and international boundaries to support missions in search of life. Scientists and technologists should speak directly with peers at other agencies, not only about previous endeavors, but also about ideas for the future. Acknowledging this, NASA plans to implement programs and allocate funds to encourage this interaction. Programs like ASTEP will foster collaboration among individuals from multiple disciplines, leading ultimately to a solid understanding of extreme environments and how to explore them, both on Earth and elsewhere. The need for more detailed surface and subsurface exploration calls for technological advances in instrumentation and artificial intelligence. Further instrument testing in Earth's extreme environments will foster the development of robust and reliable equipment for exploring analogous systems elsewhere. Extreme environments by nature are unpredictable, so, ideally, these perfected instruments should be fairly simple and expendable, as a loss of equipment is virtually inevitable at some point during the testing process. In order to begin this instrument testing, the community seeks affordable, easy access to facilities and at least one program devoted to ensuring reasonable potential for funding of interdisciplinary proposals. Life at Earth's extremes varies considerably, and, in many cases, has not yet been thoroughly studied. Dry environments host organisms able to remain dormant and desiccated at extremely high temperatures, organisms may thrive in liquid water found well below icy surfaces, and life flourishes near hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the ocean. Some scientists hypothesize that the subsurface biosphere actually contains more biomass than the surface biosphere in which we live, and experimentation at Earth's extremes will test this theory and others. Potential instruments and systems for exploring the extremes must be able to reach the subsurface and/or withstand intense heat, cold, dryness, and/or radiation. The instruments must also be small enough to meet low mass requirements on robotic space missions. Autonomous drilling systems and tiny sensors of all types are just some of the instruments that may be used to study the extremes. The primary goal for testing equipment and learning about extreme environments on Earth is to prepare to understand analagous systems elsewhere in the universe. Much is to be learned about our own planet before we have the means by which to study others.

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Created by: Joanne Emerson Responsible NASA Officials: Dr. Michael Meyer and Mr. David Lavery Last Updated: August 1, 2001