Clotho Science Program References

From Rocketpedia

Science

• Popular summary written up last year in The New York Times: When Life Goes Cloudy

• A recent paper talking about bacteria and fungi cultured from a sterile plate impactor flown on a research aircraft at 20 km: Aerobiologia 2008 Griffin‎

• A paper describing a similar flight by the same team as the above, but with more detail: Aerobiologia 2009 Smith

• Very interesting results from supercooled water droplets indicating that microbes may have a complete life cycle in the high atmospheric regions (e.g. polar stratospheric clouds): ‎Geophysical Research Letters 2001 Sattler‎

• Results taken from a balloon-borne cryosampler similar to the one described in Lal 1996 below. (Their theories on their samples' origin are definitely questionable.) FEMS Microbiology Letters 2003 Wainwright

• A different (and probably more realistic) analysis of the same samples discussed in Wainwright 2003 above: International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology 2006 Shivaji‎

Technology

• Fast-TRAC, recommended by Dan: http://availabletechnologies.pnl.gov/technology.asp?id=239

Impacts particles onto a grid and uses a high-power, high-speed camera and image differencing technology to determine when a given particle appeared. What's pictured is an older model, apparently without the camera; it's not clear at what stage of development the newer version described is.

• Spooling tape: Appl Environ Microbiol 1978 Imshenetsky

Russian sampling experiment dropped from a rocket using self-sealing spools of tape coated with sticky medium.

• Indian Journal of Radio & Space Physics 1996 Lal

The Lal device is a cryosampler using liquid neon to draw a vacuum to draw air.

• An older prototype used with the Ames Wire Impactor, demonstrated by Tony Strawa: AWI Prototype Photos‎

We have this in our possession at ARC.