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Optical Rotary Dispersion Profiles The Multivator The Mass Spectrometer The Wolf Trap The Ultraviolet Spectrophotometer. ‘Optical Rotary Dispersion Profiles' is the name of a laboratory probe with a rotary search light. Once landed on a planet, this light begins to emit beams and search for molecules. Molecules are well- known prerequisites for every kind of life. Once of these molecules is the large spiral-shaped DNS molecule, which consists of three chemical combinations arranged next to each other: a nitrogenous organic alkali, sugar and phosphoric acid. When polarised light strikes a sugar molecule, the search beam is interrupted, because the nitrogenous alkali adenin in chemical association with sugar has an ‘optically active’ effect. Since the sugar combination in the DNS molecule is 'optically active’, the search beam of the probe has only to encounter a sugar-adenin combination to produce an immediate signal that, automatically sent to earth, would provide proof of life on an unknown planet. The 'Multivator' consists of a probe weighing barely 1 Ib which is carried by a rocket as light baggage and ejected when near “the planet. This miniature laboratory is is then in a position to conduct as many as The 'Radio Isotope Biochemical Probe' is the official name of a probe developed under the nickname ‘Gulliver’. It is intended to carry out a soft landing on the surface of another planet and immediately afterwards to shoot out three 45-ft-long sticky ropes in various directions. In a few minutes these ropes will be automatically withdrawn into the probe; whatever stays clinging to the ropes—dust, microbes or any kind of biochemical substances—will be immersed in a liquid culture medium. A part of this culture solution is enriched with the radioactive carbon isotope C 14; the micro-organisms introduced would logically have to produce carbon dioxide, C02, through their metabolism. The gas carbon dioxide can easily be separated from the liquid culture and led to a measuring apparatus which measures the radioactivity of the gas containing C 14 nuclei and radios the results to earth. I should like to describe one more apparatus which the NASA has developed for the search for extraterrestrial life: what is known as the "Wolf Trap’. This mini-laboratory was originally called 'Bug Detector’ by its inventor, but his collaborators re-christened it 'Wolf Trap' because their chief is called Professor Wolf Vishniac. The Wolf Trap is also supposed to make a soft landing on another planet and then extend a vacuum tube with a very fragile tip. When the tube touches the ground, the tip breaks and soil samples of all kinds will be sucked into the vacuum created. Once again the probe contains various sterile culture mediums which guarantee every kind of bacteria a rapid growth. This multiplication of the bacteria makes the liquid medium cloudy and the pH value of the liquid also changes. (The pH value is the degree of acidity of an acid.) Both changes can be easily and accurately measured—the cloudiness of the liquid with the help of a beam of light and a photo-cell, the change in The Vidicon Microscope The J-Band Life Detector The Radio isotope Biochemical Probe A few hints as to what is hidden behind these technical tides that are double-dutch to the layman: fifteen different experiments and transmit their results to earth.