Overview
The ASTROBi Foundation is a US non-profit private operating foundation headquartered in the Denver, Colorado metro area. Our mission is to advance humanity's understanding of the emergence of life in the Universe. We pursue our mission by funding and conducting astrobiology, planetary science, and basic research programs.
What is life, exactly?
You know it when you see it" has been about as good of a definition as anyone's been able to come up with for much of history. Attempts to define it scientifically have tended to be descriptive, focusing on life as we know it, here on Earth. For example, NASA's definition is "a self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution". This is straightforward and succinct, but it is clearly focused on one kind of life (Earthly life) and it has obvious shortcomings. Does this definition apply to viruses? And if so, does it rule them out as a form of life? What other kinds of life could there be in the Universe that wouldn't necessarily match NASA's definition?
Whatever it is, life is a process that clearly led to us and all the other inhabitants of our planet. Our curiosity about ourselves and where we came from naturally leads us to ask questions about the fundamental nature of life. Can life only exist in the ways it exists on Earth? Could there be other kinds of life elsewhere? Wherever life emerges, does it always converge on the same sequence of chemical innovations: amino acids, RNA, proteins, DNA, lipid membranes, etc? Could there be completely different chemistries, or even non-chemical life? Is there life out there? If so, what is it like? How might we detect it? The field of astrobiology seeks to address these very questions.
The ASTROBi Foundation was created to advance this field, helping the astrobiology community accelerate their research. We pursue our mission by funding key underfunded research areas, ranging from mission engineering to laboratory research, recognizing the multidisciplinary nature of astrobiology. We seek to understand the universal principles that lead to life's emergence and the specific ways we could detect it beyond Earth. The questions we are pursuing have many interrelated facets, so our approach is to push forward on multiple fronts: developing new tools for detection, understanding how life might survive in extreme environments, exploring the primordial chemistry that enables life’s emergence, and creating practical ways to search for it in our solar system and beyond. Each of our projects represents a piece of this larger puzzle, working together to expand our understanding of life and its origins.
Encelascope: An Astrobiology Mission to Enceladus
The core of our portfolio is Encelascope, an innovative concept for exploring one of the solar system's most promising candidates for extraterrestrial life. Enceladus, with its subsurface ocean and active plumes, presents a unique opportunity to sample potentially life-bearing material without the need to land or drill. Our mission concept is built around a core instrument, a holographic microscope, which has the potential to detect unambiguous biosignatures. We are also exploring how to maximize science return via additional instruments, while minimizing complexity and cost. Through detailed trade studies of the trajectory, navigation, communications, spacecraft design, and payload configurations, we're developing a framework for lean, focused astrobiology missions that could serve as a template for future exploration.
Ocean World Plume Density Sensors
Understanding the composition and dynamics of Enceladus's plumes is crucial for both mission planning and astrobiology. We're studying sensor technologies that utilize acoustic and/or charged particle detection methods to characterize the plumes during spacecraft flythroughs. This will provide complementary data about particle size distribution and plume density to correlate with science data from other instruments.
Life Detection Holographic Microscopes
The challenge of detecting microscopic life in deep space has led us to develop a holographic microscope to leverage its unique advantages. We have built prototypes and multiple flight-like designs. These instruments can image and track motile organisms in three-dimensions with nearly 100% probability of detection, potentially revealing the presence and behavior of any surviving microorganisms that might be present in a sample.
Ice Particle Sample Collection
Our vacuum chamber experimental program is motivated by the technical challenge of collecting samples from Enceladus's plumes. We're investigating particle collection methods under space-like conditions, measuring collision dynamics and collection efficiency. This work directly informs spacecraft design requirements and helps establish the feasibility of various sample collection strategies.
Microbe Survival Studies
To define achievable mission goals and choose the best instrumentation suite for a space mission, we need to understand how living organisms may respond to the stresses encountered during ejection into space and collection by an orbiting spacecraft. Using terrestrial analogs of microorganisms that might exist at Enceladus, our flash-freezing experiments subject various microbial strains to simulated Enceladean conditions. These studies help to set expectations about what we might be able to observe using a microscope and other on-board instruments.
On-board Algorithm Studies
Collecting samples and analyzing them with on-board instruments produces “observables”, ie, data that contains useful information. But this information is in a raw form that isn’t useful for science. Also, deep space missions are constrained by limited communications bandwidth, so not all of the raw data collected can be transmitted to scientists on Earth for detailed analysis. On-board algorithms bridge the gap, transforming raw data into more meaningful information that is useful to scientists on Earth, or sometimes even producing science data directly. We study and develop algorithms for transforming the raw observables from high-bandwidth low-information data, into high-information low-bandwidth data. This helps to maximize the “science return” that a deep space astrobiology mission can produce.
Computational Chemistry Simulations
The computational / quantum chemistry work we are funding explores the transition from non-living to living chemistry. Using novel computational techniques, pre-biotic reactions are simulated under plausible early-Earth or Enceledean conditions. This research helps identify potential biosignatures, and constrains the possible pathways through which life might emerge. The results inform what detection techniques astrobiology missions should employ. These quantum chemistry simulations may one day reveal the path that life took here on Earth, as it transitioned from geochemistry into biochemistry.
Hydrothermal Systems Investigation
Complementing the computational simulations, the wet-lab work we are funding studies how early metabolic processes might have emerged from geochemical systems. Using custom-designed electrochemical cells (like “fuel cells” or “battery cells”) that simulate conditions in alkaline hydrothermal vents, we are studying how energy gradients could have driven the emergence of early biochemical processes. This research helps us understand what chemical signatures might indicate the presence of life, particularly on ocean worlds like Enceladus. It also helps to constrain the possible chemical pathways that may have led to our own branch of life on Earth.
Summary
These projects represent more than just individual scientific investigations - they are an interconnected “front” of scientific inquiry. Advances in one area enable insights in others. Our mission designs inform our laboratory investigations; our computational models suggest new experimental approaches; our engineering developments spawn new scientific questions. As we advance these multiple fronts, we move closer to answering some of humanity's most profound questions. The evidence we need to answer them may be waiting in the plumes of Enceladus, hidden in the chemistry of hydrothermal vents, or emerging from our computer simulations. Through careful, systematic, multidisciplinary investigation, we are developing the tools and knowledge needed to understand “what life is, exactly.
Financial Information
Our public-good scientific mission and our volunteer board and staff have enabled us to be recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) non-profit. Our IRS determination letter can be viewed on this page. Also, below you will find links to our 990 tax return forms for previous tax years.
Leadership
Erik Buehler Founder, President, and Chair of the Board
Erik Buehler created the ASTROBi Foundation to advance the field of astrobiology by targetting underfunded missions and research areas. He brings over two decades of aerospace industry experience to ASTROBi from Rockwell-Collins, Lockheed Martin, and SEAKR Engineering. Deeply interested in science from a young age, Erik is especially interested in the biological sciences and engineering. He holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering specializing in biomedical engineering from Kansas State University and did three years of graduate work researching biologically inspired algorithms. His professional experience has primarily been in research and development, with a focus on algorithms, spacecraft ground systems, and simulations of missions, constellations, spacecraft, and subsystems. Erik has led several engineering teams through the full product development lifecycle and has authored numerous publications and patents. In his role as President, he is committed to maximizing ASTROBi's scientific impact.
Kyle Johnson Director
Kyle Johnson specializes in signal processing, RF systems, and detection and estimation algorithms. Kyle brings over 15 years of aerospace and defense industry experience to ASTROBi. He has an undergraduate degree in Engineering Physics from the Colorado School of Mines and received his Masters degree in Aerospace Engineering studying remote sensing at the University of Colorado Boulder. He is an active amateur radio operator licensed in the US and the UK and has extensive experience with field radio experiments. He has traveled and worked across the world, including in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Antarctica. Kyle lives with his wife Sara and their two kids in northern England.
Dave Banerian Director
Dave Banerian specializes in space and ground system architecture, with specific emphasis and experience in high-speed data handling and communications technologies and designs. Dave brings over 40 years of experience with Martin Marietta/Lockheed Martin to ASTROBi. He has worked on a multitude of design and development study programs sponsored by ESA, NASA, DARPA, and various classified space and ground-based systems. Upon retirement in 2020, he was designated a chief systems engineer and advanced architect. He holds several trade secrets and patents in advanced communications concepts and designs, including advanced space communications employing cellular techniques and technologies. He has an undergraduate degree in Electronics Engineering with a minor in Mechanical Engineering from Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, California, with graduate courses in Biomedical Electronics.
Brian Bliss Director
Brian Bliss has developed spacecraft subsystems and components across all phases of their lifecycles, including design, development, integration, debugging, test, and on-orbit operations. During 20 years of experience with aerospace prime and subcontractors, Brian's hardware, software, firmware, PCB, FPGA, and ASIC designs have been used
successfully on dozens of LEO, MEO, HEO, and GEO satellite missions and payloads, as well as one cislunar space vehicle and one lunar lander proposal. He holds dual undergraduate degrees in Aero/Astro Engineering and Computer Engineering from Purdue University, as well as a systems engineering masters degree and an MBA from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, emphasizing space entrepreneurship. He lives with his wife and three teenage children near Boulder, Colorado.