One of the most exciting and challenging questions in today research is the origin of life and its evolution, distribution and future in the universe. Since the beginning of the space age in the 1950s, our efforts to explore the universe have expanded in a most amazing way. More and more advanced space missions, including plans for colonisation and exploitation in space, are made by a growing number of different countries. Similarly, research in different aspects of space has become a multidisciplinary research field in both fundamental as well as in applied sciences. In 2018, the Swedish Government launched a new space strategy (https://www.regeringen.se/pressmeddelanden/2018/05/regeringen-lanserar-ny-rymdstrategi/).
One outstanding research field is astrobiology, which was largely initiated by the Noble price laureate Joshua Lederberg and the renowned cosmologist Carl Sagan. Since then, astrobiology has been launched at many different universities all across the world. Astrobiology is now taught at nearly all universities in Sweden, where each university presents different research aspects.
At Umeå University, you can find different interesting research projects at different faculties and departments, ranging from astrobiology (astrobiotechnology, astroecology, extremophilic organisms, geomicrobiology, microbial evolution, plants in space), chemistry and chemical engineering, medical sciences to humanistic fields focusing on philosophical issues of human survival and sustainability. Several researchers at Umeå University are involved in large national collaborations with space agencies such as the German Aerospace Agency (DLR, NASA, and research teams involved in experiments on the international space station (ISS – the BIOMEX project), in space simulation projects (the STARLIFE project), and last but not least, Umeå University´s own space project, the Lunar Venture, and the recently launched research facility ALIS_4D at the Swedish Institute of Space Physics.
The first attempts of teaching astrobiology on undergraduate and graduate levels have been initiated and will be expanded within the near future. Furthermore, several outreach activities have been presented and highlighted in Swedish media (newspapers, radio, TV, e.g. as guest in Fråga Lund), presented at schools and museums in Umeå, Gothenburg and Stockholm.
