Breeding animals for Mars.

[Hygro]

"Yesterday Mr Latimer, 80, said: ‘It’s 6ft from a window so gets a bit of sunlight. It grows towards the light so it gets turned round every so often so it grows evenly."

Setting off my people-behaving-over-time-through-the-business-cycle spidey sense, and I can't scratch the itch.

Specifically, the winning appendages of the plant did their environment correctly, only to have their environment changed by a deliberate outside force, but ultimately for the wellness of the whole plant. There's no 1:1 analogy here just a discomfort.

 

[Mouthwash]

Specifically, the winning appendages of the plant did their environment correctly, only to have their environment changed by a deliberate outside force, but ultimately for the wellness of the whole plant. There's no 1:1 analogy here just a discomfort.

A problem that could be solved by leaving it outside.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I think it is more urgent to breed humans for Mars.

 

[Michkov]

A problem that could be solved by leaving it outside.

Only at the poles, there you run into temperature issues.

 

[Silurian]

@Terxpahseyton
That will lead to war with the demarchist faction eventually.

 

[El_Machinae]

You need an energy source for the animal. So, it might need some locally grown food (adapted microbes) as well as photosynthesis.

But using pure evolutionary pressures, I think it would take a long long time. Evolution is a numbers game, so you'd need lots and lots of generations. And many many cohorts.

That said, it's how I'd run the process if I were starting with microbes.

 

[The_J]

There's already single-celled life on the probes we've sent there.

Hopefully not.
In the meantime they're making efforts to decontaminate also outgoing material.
The NASA also intends to dump the Cassini space probe into Saturn at the end of its life, because they fear it could potentially contaminate one of the moons.

I did give an example of an anaerobic animal so...

They don't breath CO2 though .
(they use something else as terminal electron acceptor, Nitrate, Sulfur compounds, whatever)


As already pointed out: Biomass is the first problem.
To generate sugars, you need something which is capable of doing photosynthesis, or you need to send carbohydrates with it. (also main point here on earth: Without plants, the main problem wouldn't be any oxygen, but more that there's nothing to eat; simplification obviously, because there are photosynthetic microbes).
Otherwise, the radiation...I'd guess for any higher animals, until you'd have reached the limit that they could survive this amount of radiation, quite some time would've gone into the country (I don't have data on that; I'm not awaye if anyone is doing this for microbes either). Even with quickly propagating species (insects maybe, mammals no way).
Then you also have the pressure, which is way lower, and which you'd have problems adapting the animals too, and the gravitation.
On the space station this might be an option, but doing long term radiation experiments on the ISS...I don't see that happening (because you also don't want to shoot anything radiating into space, or at least not more than necessary, due to the chance that the rocket might explode over this planet).

 

[uppi]

Otherwise, the radiation...I'd guess for any higher animals, until you'd have reached the limit that they could survive this amount of radiation, quite some time would've gone into the country (I don't have data on that; I'm not awaye if anyone is doing this for microbes either). Even with quickly propagating species (insects maybe, mammals no way).

Radiation on the Mars surface is not too bad. Something around 200mSv/year. Even humans could take that for 10-20 years. A fast breeding mammal would not have much of a problem

On the space station this might be an option, but doing long term radiation experiments on the ISS...I don't see that happening (because you also don't want to shoot anything radiating into space, or at least not more than necessary, due to the chance that the rocket might explode over this planet).

You would not need to bring any radiation source at all. The radiation levels on the ISS are already comparable to those on Mars without any additional source.

Radiation is somewhat of a problem for human settlers. But any animal reaching maturity in a few years would be fine.

 

[Mouthwash]

As already pointed out: Biomass is the first problem.
To generate sugars, you need something which is capable of doing photosynthesis, or you need to send carbohydrates with it. (also main point here on earth: Without plants, the main problem wouldn't be any oxygen, but more that there's nothing to eat; simplification obviously, because there are photosynthetic microbes).

Assume we've partially terraformed and lichen has spread across the planet.

Otherwise, the radiation...I'd guess for any higher animals, until you'd have reached the limit that they could survive this amount of radiation, quite some time would've gone into the country (I don't have data on that; I'm not awaye if anyone is doing this for microbes either). Even with quickly propagating species (insects maybe, mammals no way).

Uh, no.

Then you also have the pressure, which is way lower,

Why can't animals be bred for those conditions?

the gravitation.

Lower gravity doesn't seem like it would harm or impair animals to any significant extent.

 

[The_J]

Radiation on the Mars surface is not too bad. Something around 200mSv/year. Even humans could take that for 10-20 years. A fast breeding mammal would not have much of a problem



You would not need to bring any radiation source at all. The radiation levels on the ISS are already comparable to those on Mars without any additional source.

Radiation is somewhat of a problem for human settlers. But any animal reaching maturity in a few years would be fine.

Aye, guess I was wrong on that.

Assume we've partially terraformed and lichen has spread across the planet.

Then I guess yes, but as already said, at the current state we actually don't want to do that.

Why can't animals be bred for those conditions?

I guess we could, but would take a monstrously long time.
This has impact on the skeleton, the cardiovascular system, the digestive system, eyes, skin, everything.
I'd be surprised if that worked easily.
(but then, maybe I'm again wrong ^^)

 

[Michkov]

Lower gravity doesn't seem like it would harm or impair animals to any significant extent.

There may be developmental issues due to low gravity. Sadly there is little research into that being done.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Hobbs, add an email subscription widget to your blog.

I've actually been meaning to shut it down. I haven't had the time to post on it in months.

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/20120515-earth-life-survive-mars.html

Also, Mars almost certainly has seasonal water flows, which may be enough to sustain life. It would be similar to the flowering desert phenomenon.

We aren't actually certain those are actual water flows. We're pretty sure but there's other hypothesis that don't involve water that fit the available evidence.

Those water flows would also not be very friendly to life. They'll be loaded with salts and percolates (and would pick up more when they reach the surface) that would kill just about anything.

It's also a highly transient phenomenon that we don't know a lot about. It's fun to speculate on it but we can't yet prove that these potential seeps could overcome all of the life-killing things going on on Mars to support life.

There's already single-celled life on the probes we've sent there.

That doesn't mean they survived the trip.

I did give an example of an anaerobic animal so...

That couldn't survive on Mars so...

Hopefully not.
In the meantime they're making efforts to decontaminate also outgoing material.
The NASA also intends to dump the Cassini space probe into Saturn at the end of its life, because they fear it could potentially contaminate one of the moons.

There's an almost certainty that there is some fleetingly small amount of contamination on everything we send to other planets. They do everything they can to reduce the contamination but it's not really possible to send out completely clean probes. Having said that, there's almost no chance that any of that contamination has survived and propagated on the surface.

Lower gravity doesn't seem like it would harm or impair animals to any significant extent.

Unfortunately we don't actually know this. We have very little experience with 0 g and basically no experience with 0<g<1 gravity.

There may be developmental issues due to low gravity. Sadly there is little research into that being done.

Yeah they were going to put a centrifuge system on the ISS for this research but it was cancelled. Also the station was originally to have a spinning ring but that got axed too.

 

[Mouthwash]

There may be developmental issues due to low gravity. Sadly there is little research into that being done.

There's no greater selective pressure.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

There's no greater selective pressure.

We do not know if this statement is true. There are essentially no data points to draw that conclusion from and given how complex evolutionary processes are we shouldn't jump to conclusions.

 

[Mouthwash]

We do not know if this statement is true. There are essentially no data points to draw that conclusion from and given how complex evolutionary processes are we shouldn't jump to conclusions.

It's surely greater than dying late in life?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I don't follow

 

[Michkov]

If the whole population dies or is so malformed that it cant produce offspring there is no such thing as selection pressure. It's simply deadly environment for that organism. I grant you may find some simple organism that wont die on Mars before reproducing but what you are suggesting is reseting evolution at the single cell level. I dont think we have time to wait millions of years for the biosphere to develop.

 

[Perfection]

(I think I may have created a similar thread in the past, but I can't remember whether I did it or just thought about it.)

I want to know: is there a reason that a fast-reproducing animal (cockroaches, rats) can't be adapted to Martian conditions within the lifetime of a human being? I'd like someone more knowledgeable than I to explain this. If we stuck some animals in a tank, cranked up the radiation, and started moving the atmosphere and temperature towards Martian levels, when would real changes start happening?

Don't tell me it isn't possible. Here's an animal that does not need any oxygen whatsoever.

The problem with no oxygen comes in cellular respiration. Cellular respiration is how organisms get energy. If organisms don't get energy, they can't reproduce like rabbits.

Now organisms can do cellular respiration without oxygen. But they suck. They either require weird energy sources, or (in the case of fermentation) provide limited energy output (they do so by turning hydrocarbons into other hydrocarbons with slightly less potential energy). You might be able to some dinky ass slow microanimal with it, but you aren't going to run high energy organisms like cockroaches and rats.

At a basic level animals (including us) are fueled the same way cars are. We take food (hydrocarbons) and react with oxygen to produce water vapor and carbon dioxide. Without the oxygen you got nothing. You can't burn gasoline without oxygen and we neither can burn food without it.

 

[Mouthwash]

I don't follow

If a creature dies before being born (or before sexual maturity) it cannot reproduce.