- Dangerous pathogens
could be headed to Earth, but don't freak out...yet.
- We're not taking any chances.
- To prevent a Martian plague,
NASA is building a first of its kind biocontainment lab
to study samples from Mars.
- The question is: Once they come into the atmosphere,
where do you bring them in,
in order to ensure that, not only, those samples are safe,
but also the population is safe?
- It's gonna require this really fascinating lab.
It's, basically, gonna be the world's most paradoxical
HVAC system.
- To get it right, NASA is visiting labs
that contain some of the most dangerous pathogens-
and we got to go to one.
- I'm sorry you did not get to see a Ebola or smallpox.
- I was gonna be very careful.
- Do you actually think
that you're gonna have time to build the lab,
get it all ready for those samples to come back?
- We are in a pretty tight schedule.
It's just a matter of properly prioritizing.
- Time is getting tight.
So, the question is, will we be ready
for whatever is discovered on Mars?
NASA is facing a monumental task, again.
- 'One giant leap.'
- The mission to bring Mars samples to Earth,
is another extremely complicated one.
- 'Touch down confirmed.
Perseverance safely on the surface of Mars.'
- Here's what needs to happen:
The Perseverance Rover collects samples from the surface
and atmosphere on Mars, drops them on the surface,
which is picked up and launched into orbit,
then shot into space and captured by another vehicle,
which will ultimately drop them onto Earth.
And, the last step relies on Dr. Andrea Harrington.
She's responsible for designing and building
the biocontainment lab
that will allow researchers to safely study the Mars samples
collected because when they finally make it back to Earth,
they could pose a threat to humanity.
- The risk is really low.
That being said, we're not taking any chances,
and we're taking a very conservative
and safety-first approach.
- This mission, that's decades in the making,
is all to answer two questions:
Did life ever exist on Mars, and could we live there?
- So it is possible, and it seems like this is the case,
based on geological evidence,
that Mars was actually quite similar to Earth.
We're going to Jezero Crater,
which is thought to have been a former lake bed.
So, there could be some sort of fossils,
or some evidence of past life within the samples.
- Every time we bring back samples from another world,
whether the asteroids, the moon, we find something new.
And there's larger discoveries about how solar systems form,
and how planets form.
- And that's what's at stake.
What we bring back from space
could have pathogens that threaten our civilization.
To mitigate that risk, NASA is learning from its past.
- This is the home of the largest collection
of lunar samples, and on that corner over there,
is actually the largest display of lunar samples
in the world.
- So, why is it important for you to be in a lab like this,
as you prepare for our samples to return to Earth?
All of the equipment that you see in here,
will inspire, or be used to help design the equipment
for the Mars samples.
So, you see this positive pressure glove boxes behind us:
They are filled with a very specialized,
inert nitrogen environment.
That's an inert environment,
to make sure the samples stay pristine,
and don't degrade over time.
That's why we can have so much great science,
five decades later.
- The facility NASA is engineering,
is unlike any lab that exists on Earth.
So, Freethink writer B. David
helped put it all into context.
- Biocontainment labs come in multiple levels,
one through four, and four is the most secure.
When you picture a biocontainment lab in your head,
you're probably thinking of a BSL-4 lab.
There's only a handful of these around the world.
This is where you can study the most dangerous agents.
These are lethal agents. They're often exotic.
They often have no vaccines or therapies.
When you're coming in and out of these facilities,
it's a whole process.
You have to change your clothes, put on these, like, suits.
Everyone signs in and out.
When you leave, you have to take a decontamination shower.
It's a whole to-do.
You're, sort of, entering a whole new world.
- We actually got to see this up close in Boston,
at the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories.
We'll just call it NEIDL.
It's one of the containment labs
that Andrea and her team visited.
- This is the training facility.
The requirements for working inside a Level 4 laboratory
are so different than in a Level 3 and a Level 2 lab,
that we have a specialized space
to allow us to train people.
- So, there's nothing dangerous in here, for the rest-
- This is not a lab that is certified to allow you
to bring any living thing into it,
except the pathogens that we all have walked in here
on ourselves.
Members of NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
came and visited, and they were interested in
how current Biosafety Level 4 labs are built,
but also whether or not those could be modified at all
for the purposes of bringing samples back from Mars.
So, these are suits that are built in a way
that they will keep air.
- Because the air is getting pushed into the suit,
it has positive pressure so it's the opposite of a lab.
So, if there was a tear in my suit,
the air is gonna come rushing out of the suit,
and keeping things in the lab away from me.
- Kind of like the suit,
NASA needs to create a lab with a negative pressure paradigm
to keep anything from escaping,
while also creating a positive pressure environment,
so they don't contaminate the samples.
- So, this was designed to house the most pristine
of the pristine contamination knowledge samples
from our sample return.
So, the items that are gonna be stored in here,
are already also gonna be in a vacuum bake-out case,
but it's a fail-safe, 'cause this will be-
it's gonna be a box within a box,
which is a typical thing that we're doing for Mars,
to make sure it's- the samples are as safe from us
as possible.
- Building all of this,
is just part of a step in the process of preparing
for the Mars sample return, but it's being used,
potentially, for other samples that are coming back.
- Yeah. - Within the next 10 years.
- Yeah. - Very cool.
- I think it's incredibly fascinating,
what science is capable of doing.
I think people, maybe, underestimate our abilities
in this regard.
And, I consider something like a Biosafety
Level 4 laboratory, where we can really safely look
at some of these really dangerous biological agents
and viruses, to be an important achievement for science.
- The Mars samples are expected to land on Earth
in 2033.
It seems like a long time, but a lab so specialized
is gonna take nearly a decade to design and build.
- While the chances of a Martian plague happening
are probably really slim,
I do think it's important that they take it seriously,
because if it were to happen, it's gonna be really bad.
We saw how bad it can get
with something that already lives on Earth-
I wouldn't want to know what happens otherwise.
I think it's worth the investment, just in case.
- Over the past number of years,
I think that there is a resurgence,
or a growing need for high-containment facilities.
We're doing something that's never been done before-
and that's exciting.
- I mean, I grew up in the Space Age,
and this is something I would've never envisioned
from years ago.
I think that NASA certainly has the scientific minds
to be able to make this work.