Breeding animals for Mars.

[Mouthwash]

(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.

 

[Synobun]

It's vastly expensive and you would need to start small. There's already research being done on survivability of amoebae and tardigrades, for example.

Beyond this, however, the Martian atmosphere isn't conducive towards life as we know it. We might find microbial life on Mars, we probably won't. If we do, it won't be like life on Earth simply because they have to evolve under radically different circumstances. There is also the question of contamination: Do we want to imbalance a potential ecosystem with human interference? What happens if we transplant life on Mars and then discover native Martian life? Why bother with transplanting organic life when an artificial intervention would be far more effective? Organic life can be used to maintain a created atmosphere but can't be expected to create one, at least not in a remotely timely manner.

 

[Mouthwash]

It's vastly expensive

I wouldn't say "vastly." Just pay the salaries of the scientists, and maintain the equipment. I don't think it would possibly be more than $100 million, probably a lot lower. The LHC was $9 billion.

EDIT: There's a guy who created a closed ecosystem in a plastic jar.

and you would need to start small. There's already research being done on survivability of amoebae and tardigrades, for example.

Why? Lichens can already survive on Mars, although I'm not sure about their ability to spread.

(I think you missed the point, sort of. I'm not claiming we should cook up a bunch of Mars-adapted insects and dump them there as soon as possible, I just want to make the point that it doesn't seem like Mars is an absolute death zone for macroscopic life).

Beyond this, however, the Martian atmosphere isn't conducive towards life as we know it.

How is it not? There are plenty of exceptions already.

Do we want to imbalance a potential ecosystem with human interference? What happens if we transplant life on Mars and then discover native Martian life?

I think we will have mapped out Mars pretty well by the time anyone considers releasing animals onto the naked surface.

Why bother with transplanting organic life when an artificial intervention would be far more effective? Organic life can be used to maintain a created atmosphere but can't be expected to create one, at least not in a remotely timely manner.

When did I ever claim this was for terraforming purposes?

 

[Synobun]

Plenty of exceptions? Did I miss the announcement on life on Mars?

You didn't claim it was for terraforming, but I don't exactly see the incentive of designing life to survive on Mars to contaminate its ecosystem for... fun? Just because we can?

 

[Mouthwash]

Plenty of exceptions? Did I miss the announcement on life on Mars?

Earth life that can survive on Mars. No animals, but still life as we know it.

You didn't claim it was for terraforming, but I don't exactly see the incentive of designing life to survive on Mars to contaminate its ecosystem for... fun? Just because we can?

As a thought experiment. Or maybe we'll decide to genetically/mechanically alter ourselves to suit Mars instead of completely terraforming it.

Heck, forget Mars, think what we could learn from CO2 breathing animals by themselves.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Tardigrades can survive pretty much anywhere.

They're freakishly hideous things...

 

[Narz]

What would roaches eat on Mars? Also how would they breathe? Let's try to get microorganisms to survive there first (tho not sure why they would be a practical exercise, we have enuf trouble on this planet).

 

[Narz]

Why? Lichens can already survive on Mars, although I'm not sure about their ability to spread.

Pics? I was unaware of lichens on Mars.

 

[Synobun]

Earth life that can survive on Mars. No animals, but still life as we know it.

Survive does not equal thrive, and I'm not sure that there exists any lifeform on Earth that would thrive on Mars. Although if you know this to be false I'd be certainly interested in learning more.

 

[uppi]

You didn't claim it was for terraforming, but I don't exactly see the incentive of designing life to survive on Mars to contaminate its ecosystem for... fun? Just because we can?

If we were ever to colonize Mars, an organism being able to grow on Mars and generate sugar would be an extremely valuable food source. The concentration of CO₂ on the Mars surface is actually higher than on Earth, so you could use the atmosphere as a carbon source. But you would have to find a solution on how plants would get water.

 

[Synobun]

If we were ever to colonize Mars, an organism being able to grow on Mars and generate sugar would be an extremely valuable food source. The concentration of CO₂ on the Mars surface is actually higher than on Earth, so you could use the atmosphere as a carbon source. But you would have to find a solution on how plants would get water.

I can't imagine utilizing Mars as essentially an agricultural megalopolis would ever be cost effective unless Earth's climate kicks the bucket and we're still around with sufficient technology and power in local space.

 

[warpus]

Right now NASA's policy seems to be "Make as sure as possible that we don't contaminate other planets, especially ones where we might one day find traces of life, past or present". Another reason why nobody seems to be trying to do this.

Besides, it's probably not very easy to force the evolution of a new species which will survive and thrive on a different planet. What sort of side-effects would that have? There's probably all sorts of stuff we're not thinking of. I mean, it seems to me you'd have to introduce a food source for this new species as well, and then a food source for that, and so on..

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I wrote an article on this subject, fyi.

A few things-
No earth creatures could actually survive, much less thrive, in the current Martian climate. Perhaps in a cavern deep underground but that's the best we could hope for. Both tardigrades and lichens would die in short order on Mars. I know tardigrades frequently come up in this context but their hardiness is overblown when compared to the challenge of surviving an interplanetary trip as ejecta from an impact. Even if we brought them with us, they would still die off in short order on the surface. Even the oft-repeated claims that tardigrades could travel between worlds is founded on the conceit that the destination world they arrived on would be hospitable. Mars is anything but.

I'm not convinced that we have the bio-engineering technology of any type sufficiently advanced to allow us to create single-celled life that is capable of surviving unaided on the surface. This of course precludes multi-cellular life of any kind as well.

What we can do is adapt life to survive the trip (a big problem for large animals - space travel will not be kind to them) and to survive in harsher environments. Under the right conditions, even people can adapt to less air and slightly lower/higher O2 and CO2 concentrations. We can certainly breed animals and single celled life to survive even more austere conditions which we will have to do in order to lesson the biological burden on the colony's resources.

However, to get life to survive on the surface completely unaided you would either need fantastically advanced genetic engineering technology or at least a partially terraformed Mars. We can't do either of those things right now - at least not in a time scale that you or I would live to see it. That may change in the coming decades as we climb further up the exponential cliff of discovery but I wouldn't really count on it.

Going to Mars is going to be extraordinarily costly. Terraforming the planet and areomorphing life to thrive on it even more so.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Right now NASA's policy seems to be "Make as sure as possible that we don't contaminate other planets, especially ones where we might one day find traces of life, past or present". Another reason why nobody seems to be trying to do this.

Besides, it's probably not very easy to force the evolution of a new species which will survive and thrive on a different planet. What sort of side-effects would that have? There's probably all sorts of stuff we're not thinking of. I mean, it seems to me you'd have to introduce a food source for this new species as well, and then a food source for that, and so on..

NASA is absolutely steadfast in their commitment to eliminate contamination. It's going to be interesting to see how they will handle the shift to accommodate it when manned missions begins. I suspect they'll loosen the regulations quickly and then drop them altogether quietly.

There may come to be a political group opposed to humanity spreading ourselves and germs around. I don't really see it unless we find life elsewhere in the solar system before we get there ourselves.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I can't imagine utilizing Mars as essentially an agricultural megalopolis would ever be cost effective unless Earth's climate kicks the bucket and we're still around with sufficient technology and power in local space.

I am pretty sure he meant that it would be a great boon for the colony itself, not so much make it the breadbasket of the solar system. Basically he's saying there is likely some ways we can make a Martian colony self-sufficient when it comes to food relatively easy. We must figure this out for a colony to be viable in any case.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Earth life that can survive on Mars. No animals, but still life as we know it.



As a thought experiment. Or maybe we'll decide to genetically/mechanically alter ourselves to suit Mars instead of completely terraforming it.

Heck, forget Mars, think what we could learn from CO2 breathing animals by themselves.

I don't think any animals ever would breath CO2, it's completely useless as a replacement for oxygen. There are some very basic rules of biology and chemistry that you are trampling over in this thread. As much as I want these things to be true or possible, they just aren't.

 

[Synobun]

I am pretty sure he meant that it would be a great boon for the colony itself, not so much make it the breadbasket of the solar system. Basically he's saying there is likely some ways we can make a Martian colony self-sufficient when it comes to food relatively easy. We must figure this out for a colony to be viable in any case.

Hobbs, add an email subscription widget to your blog.

And oh! Well, yeah, that would make sense! Mouthwash however made an explicit point of saying this wasn't for terraforming and instead as a... thought experiment...? I can't see a reason to adapt lifeforms for surviving and thriving on Mars without the additional factor of humanity intending to live on Mars as well. And as my first reply said, organic life can certainly be used to maintain an atmosphere and the survivability of those living within said atmosphere... after it exists. As it stands right now, Mars' atmosphere isn't conducive towards life and adapting lifeforms towards its current conditions would be mostly irrelevant.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Even as a thought experiment it returns a strong null result.

 

[Hygro]

EDIT: There's a guy who created a closed ecosystem in a plastic jar.

"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.

 

[Mouthwash]

Pics? I was unaware of lichens on Mars.

Survive does not equal thrive, and I'm not sure that there exists any lifeform on Earth that would thrive on Mars. Although if you know this to be false I'd be certainly interested in learning more.

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.

Right now NASA's policy seems to be "Make as sure as possible that we don't contaminate other planets, especially ones where we might one day find traces of life, past or present". Another reason why nobody seems to be trying to do this.

...let me introduce you to this Elon Musk guy.

Besides, it's probably not very easy to force the evolution of a new species which will survive and thrive on a different planet. What sort of side-effects would that have? There's probably all sorts of stuff we're not thinking of. I mean, it seems to me you'd have to introduce a food source for this new species as well, and then a food source for that, and so on..

Even humans have been known to eat lichens.

I wrote an article on this subject, fyi.

A few things-
No earth creatures could actually survive, much less thrive, in the current Martian climate. Perhaps in a cavern deep underground but that's the best we could hope for. Both tardigrades and lichens would die in short order on Mars. I know tardigrades frequently come up in this context but their hardiness is overblown when compared to the challenge of surviving an interplanetary trip as ejecta from an impact. Even if we brought them with us, they would still die off in short order on the surface. Even the oft-repeated claims that tardigrades could travel between worlds is founded on the conceit that the destination world they arrived on would be hospitable. Mars is anything but.

I'm not convinced that we have the bio-engineering technology of any type sufficiently advanced to allow us to create single-celled life that is capable of surviving unaided on the surface. This of course precludes multi-cellular life of any kind as well.

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

I don't think any animals ever would breath CO2, it's completely useless as a replacement for oxygen. There are some very basic rules of biology and chemistry that you are trampling over in this thread.

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