The NEW JERSEY SPACE GRANT CONSORTIUM, sponsored a symposium on Astrobiologyat the October 2000 NJ Science Teachers convention. The Consortium has received funds from NASA to increase the awareness and convey the excitement of space science to middle and high school students. Members of the consortium are the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Rutgers University, Princeton University, Stevens Institute of Technology and The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

Space exploration is a national enterprise; it has been an area of some of our greatest triumphs as a nation. Astrobiology deals with such topics as the origins of life, whether life is unique to our planet and what sort of life we might find elsewhere in the universe. NASA is now beginning to address these questions. Everyone knows about the Mars probes - there is a continuous stream of news stories, but why do we attach such importance on missions to explore life on Mars? What is the scientific rationale for believing that life may have existed on Mars? The symposium addressed these and other issues.

It is our hope that science teachers will incorporate some of this information about astrobiology and space science in general to their pupils. As part of our contribution NASA provided a booth with information and materials about their programs for school children. The symposium consisted of four invited speakers plus panel discussions. The proposed lectures are all of the highest quality.

Lecture 1: Dr. Gerald Soffen, NASA (Goddard) The excitement of Astrobiology and our Future. Late Dr. Gerald Soffen was an inspiration to generations of students and scientists. He oversaw the Mars Mission and its development as well as the initiation and fostering of the NASA Astrobiology Academy.

Lecture 2: Dr. John Charles PhD, NASA. How NASA proposed to solve the engineering problems involved in sending humans to Mars. Dr. Charles is the scientist in charge of putting together an internal NASA presentation of the new technologies that NASA has come up with enabling them to reduce the estimated costs of a Mars mission to $40 billion from the 1990 estimate of $400 billion.

Lecture 3: Dr. Emily Morey-Holton, The influence of gravity on human development. Dr. Holton, who is affiliated with the NASA astrobiology institute and the division of Life Sciences at the NASA Ames Research Center has focused her interests in recent years on the role of gravity in modeling the musculo-skeletal system.

Lecture 4: Erin McMullin. Life in extreme environments. This talk involves the evolution of specie at extreme depths in the ocean floor and possible scenario for similar growth in outer space.

Information about the symposium: