Inside NASA’s highest level bio-safety lab

NASA is building a first-of-its-kind biocontainment lab to study samples from Mars — and possibly prevent a Martian plague.

NASA is gearing up for the next phase of its mission to Mars that is decades in the making. The mission aims to answer two main questions: Did life ever exist on Mars, and can humans live there? Collecting samples from Mars and returning them to Earth is key to the mission.

But what if the samples from Mars contain dangerous pathogens? NASA is not taking any chances. That's why they are building a state-of-the-art biocontainment lab to ensure the samples are kept secure and the public is safe.

The lab will be equipped with cutting-edge technology and will use the strictest safety measures to isolate any potential hazards. Here's how NASA plans to safely return Martian materials to Earth.

0:00 The potential Martian plague
1:15 How we study Mars samples
2:10 Life on Mars?
2:57 Building the lab
4:28 Inside a level 4 lab
5:49 Negative pressure paradigm
7:01 Protecting humanity

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Read more of our stories on aerospace:
NASA unveils new spacesuits for upcoming moon mission
ESA thinks we can grow hydroponic gardens on the moon
NASA and ESA are racing to bring GPS to the moon
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Watch our original series:

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About Freethink
No politics, no gossip, no cynics. At Freethink, we believe the daily news should inspire people to build a better world. While most media is fueled by toxic politics and negativity, we focus on solutions: the smartest people, the biggest ideas, and the most ground breaking technology shaping our future.
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[freethink]

Do you think we should bring back samples from Mars?

[TheObsidianLogic]

A great man once said………..
“Curiosity k!lled the Cat”

[stcenturyhiphop]

Guess they don't read Michael Crighton at NASA...

[jamesthedoctor]

So that was the inspiration for the 2319 suits in Monsters Inc

[kennethwilliams]

Could you engineer bioweapons type viruses in that lab? Do they?

[hwway]

Did we discover life on Mars? Or is this in preparation to attempt to discover life on Mars?

[hondaxblade]

So you're saying that the perseverance rover is not capable of analyzing that mars samples on the go? Like why aren't they build a rover/facilty like that on the Mars itself, controled by an AI.. as this is the so called "AI era"

[schnitzelschnizel]

Russia came up with Vector which has level 5 synthetically engineered hybrid Chimera Ebolapox viruses in 1997.

[NicholasEllis-pelk]

Ultraviolet light and Ultrsound Royal Raymond rife that space trash

[thomasconstructionco]

why not check everything on moon or iss i mean yhey are going to the moon anyway

[filibertocaceresbetancur]

Bicouse the humanity use water and food study and Investigation university amazon peru latin america City iquitos and so traveling throughout the universe for long time

[SpaceThieff]

Great! Brand new taxpayer-funded money. I don’t see a reason for a new fund of this level for such an early stage. I don’t think allocation to such a project is necessary. Do we really need a BSL-4 level, of course? I don’t really think so. It seems like NASA has run out of ideas to spend more American dollars.

[Aasifkhan-npqm]

Surprising (v v v v v v v expensive) solution to not our Problem, just don't bring those damn pathogens to earth, a simple solution.

[serenityssolace]

Whenever these people say they want to prevent they mean they want to cause an outbreak