Penelope (Penny) Boston, speleo-biologist and Director of Cave and Karst
Science at New Mexico Tech, co-founded Mars
Underground and then the Mars Society. She was a President of the
Association of Mars Explorers, and is now a member of the science team
taking part in Mars Arctic 365, a new one-year Mars surface simulation
mission set to start in summer 2014 on Devon Island. Bost
on's
work involves studying underground ecosystems extremophile inhabitants
on Earth in order to predict environments/lifeforms possible elsewhere
in the Universe. She has worked with the NASA Innovative Advanced
Concepts program (NIAC) to develop protocols for both human
extraterrestrial cave habitation, and for subterranean [underground]
life-detection missions on Mars, which she believes is highly likely to
exist. For the last 2+ decades Boston has focused on exploring caves.
"The first time I did any serious caving was actually in Lechuguilla
Cave ...We trained for about three hours, then we launched into a
five-day expedition into Lechuguilla that nearly killed us! ... I had a
blob of gypsum in my eye and an infection that swelled it shut. I
twisted my ankle. I popped a rib … The bruises faded. My eye stopped
being infected. … some of those gooey blobs drip[ed] down into my
eye—but, I was like, 'Oh my God. This is biological. I just know it is.'
So it was a clue. And, when, I got out, I knew I had to learn how to do
this. I wanted to get back in there."
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