Survival in Space: An Interview With Astrobiologist Charles Cockell (Part 2)

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.nl.html?pid=20573

"What I'm doing, in common with many other European scientists, is to select
various organisms that can survive extreme conditions, and to send them into
Earth orbit to see how they respond to the conditions of space. We're interested
in the survival of microbes in extreme space conditions from a planetary
protection point of view."

-- Contemplating Craters: An Interview With Astrobiologist Charles Cockell (Part 1)

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.nl.html?pid=20572

"One of the things I'm interested in as a microbiologist is the way in which
asteroid and comet impacts might create new opportunities for life. We've been
doing work in a number of craters, including the Haughton crater in the Canadian
High Arctic, and also the Chesapeake Bay impact crater, which is an 80-kilometer
diameter crater in the US. One of the things we find is that the massive energy of
impacts can shatter rocks and create habitats for microorganisms."