It has been widely reported that this organism survived for over two years on the Surveyor 3 probe on the moon; but some NASA scientists suggest this may be a result of contamination during or after return of Surveyor parts to Earth, as the person assembling the camera may have sneezed.
It is widely claimed that a common type of bacterium, Streptococcus mitis, accidentally contaminated the Surveyor's camera prior to launch, and that the bacteria survived dormant in the harsh lunar environment for two and one-half years, supposedly then to be detected when Apollo 12 brought the Surveyor's camera back to the Earth.
Mars Global Surveyor | Surveyor Generals Corner | Surveyor General | Malcolm Fraser (surveyor) | Surveyor program | Surveyor of the Queen's Works of Art | Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures | Surveyor 3 | One of the surveyor's marks Colvin left on dozens of peaks in the Adirondacks, this one on Big Slide Mountain | Henry Wade (surveyor) | Daniel Ross (marine surveyor) | Chartered Surveyor | Andrew Ellicott (surveyor) |
Leonard D. Jaffe, a Surveyor program scientist and custodian of the Surveyor 3 parts brought back from the Moon, stated in a letter to the Planetary Society that a member of his staff reported that a "breach of sterile procedure" took place at just the right time to produce a false positive result.