[Involute]

Apollo 12 retrieved a Surveyor 3 camera that had been on the Moon for over two years and contained Streptococcus mitis bacteria that survived in a dormant state and were recultured back on Earth. Pete Conrad, Apollo 12 commander, said, "I always thought the most significant thing that we ever found on the whole...Moon was that little bacteria who came back and lived and nobody ever said [anything] about it."

[daveslash]

As much as I WANT to believe, and I did for a long while, that Strep was on the moon for years, it's possible that this was a false positive. That being said, I think this is still an important event and is a good starting point for experimentation.

"One of the implements being used to scrape samples off the Surveyor parts could have been laid down on a non-sterile laboratory bench, and then was used to collect surface samples for culturing. It is, therefore, quite possible that the microorganisms were transferred to the camera after its return to Earth. Furthermore, the Surveyor 3 camera was returned from the Moon in a nylon duffel bag, and was not in the type of sealed airtight metal container used to return lunar samples in the early Apollo missions. It is therefore possible that it was contaminated by the astronauts and the environment in the Apollo 12 capsule itself. The bacterial test is now non-repeatable because the parts were subsequently taken out of quarantine and fully re-exposed to terrestrial conditions."

source: http://lsda.jsc.nasa.gov/scripts/experiment/exper.aspx?exp_i...

[Nogwater]

Of course, there's a They Might Be Giants song about this incident. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xulaYpsnkcg