Why can't we put life on Mars?

[Mouthwash]

Certain types of lichen and bacteria are known to be capable of surviving in Martian conditions, and it's hard to believe that a suitable location for liquid water can't be found anywhere on Mars. It wouldn't need to consistently liquid, only periodically enough to sustain life, and as this paper suggests, that might not be too hard to find. Maybe set them down with a chemical or some salt, to help melt the ice, or breed them to use such materials naturally.

And what about animals? Some cockroaches or rats, after enough breeding under controlled conditions, could possibly survive as well. I know that the idea of a carbon dioxide breathing animal seems too ridiculous to contemplate, but it's obvious why there has never been any selective pressure for such an ability. I mean, it couldn't hurt to try.

So, basically, I don't think it's a stretch to put self-sustaining colonies of life on the bare surface of Mars fifty years from now.

And this all leads me to a bigger question- why aren't animals being bred to their extremes today? Ancient plants and animals evolved alongside humans. Now that we understand evolution and genetics, there doesn't seem to be anything to stop the process from accelerating. Why doesn't it happen?

 

[Antilogic]

While I agree with the sentiment, you probably won't have much success on that carbon dioxide breather front.

I'm a fan of the orbital bombardment terraforming idea myself.

 

[BenitoChavez]

I'm sure if our best and brightest got together we could start terraforming Mars right now. The reason why it doesn't happen is a matter of money, political will, and time. If you're lacking in one of those 3 things you're outta luck.

Also something to think about is if we start terraforming, we could wipe out evidence of martian life if it ever existed and miss out on a great discovery.

 

[Paul in Saudi]

Why?

It could be done in much less than 50 years. We would have to develop a couple of ideal life forms to meet local conditions. We could then take some minimal amount (say 50L) to the surface and distribute it with some sort of mortar. Call it ten years.

But before we mess up Mars with our own life forms (and again I ask why), we really need to survey what is already there. That might take 50 years.

 

[timtofly]

Why can't we?

There seems to be a lot more interest in making life easier on earth right now.

 

[Bootstoots]

I could see a faint possibility that plants or algae might be able to survive on Mars. They'd have to be located on water sources at the very lowest elevations (most of Mars has atmospheric pressure <6 mbar, below which liquid water can't exist at any temperature). They'd also have to be extremely freeze-tolerant and able to get enough liquid water during the brief periods when the temperature exceeds 0 C. Failing that, we could try with some cold-tolerant cyanobacteria or chemoautotrophs. I'd say it's a long shot, especially since so many other variables also have to be taken into account (e.g. the soil) but it would be an interesting experiment nonetheless. Might want to check a few more times to make sure there's no subsurface Martian life in the test site first though.

As for animals, no way. Mars's atmosphere is 96% CO2 with negligible oxygen. Even with its low overall pressure, it has more than enough CO2 for Earth plants (which get by on 400 ppm now, and used to have much less). Oxygen produced by any photosynthetic organisms that got established would react quickly with iron and other stuff, so it wouldn't persist in the atmosphere.

 

[Narz]

We don't need to go to outer space to have the challenge of making a planet livable for human beings. We're going to have that challenge on Earth this century.

 

[KevinLancaster]

Well let's throw some probes over there just in case we mess this one up, eh?

 

[Narz]

If we can't salvage Earth we sure as hell won't be able to colonize Mars.

And seriously, who in their right mind would really want to live on another planet. Weird gravity & radiation messing with your health, no fresh air, even if you & a few others could manage to survive on an alien planet I can't imagine much more lonely.

 

[GoodGame]

Certain types of lichen and bacteria are known to be capable of surviving in Martian conditions, and it's hard to believe that a suitable location for liquid water can't be found anywhere on Mars. It wouldn't need to consistently liquid, only periodically enough to sustain life, and as this paper suggests, that might not be too hard to find. Maybe set them down with a chemical or some salt, to help melt the ice, or breed them to use such materials naturally.

And what about animals? Some cockroaches or rats, after enough breeding under controlled conditions, could possibly survive as well. I know that the idea of a carbon dioxide breathing animal seems too ridiculous to contemplate, but it's obvious why there has never been any selective pressure for such an ability. I mean, it couldn't hurt to try.

So, basically, I don't think it's a stretch to put self-sustaining colonies of life on the bare surface of Mars fifty years from now.

And this all leads me to a bigger question- why aren't animals being bred to their extremes today? Ancient plants and animals evolved alongside humans. Now that we understand evolution and genetics, there doesn't seem to be anything to stop the process from accelerating. Why doesn't it happen?

Water is the biggest problem. Figure that an oxygen atmosphere actually had to be created by evolving life-forms on Earth, but the earliest organisms are still of the type that need ample water for both their metabolism and their internal structure.

If you could create a synthetic organism that could burrow through martian rock, survive long periods without water, and metabolically convert oxides to oxygen gas---power to you!

How would you start? Probably with genomics research, and first mapping the genomes of interesting Earth species, especially looking for genes (most importantly metabolic enzymes encoded by the genes) that would yield desirable biochemistry pathways. But maybe you could go an inorganic route, looking for catalysts, and engineering devices to send up on a rover to do the terraforming without life.

 

[KevinLancaster]

If we can't salvage Earth we sure as hell won't be able to colonize Mars.

And seriously, who in their right mind would really want to live on another planet. Weird gravity & radiation messing with your health, no fresh air, even if you & a few others could manage to survive on an alien planet I can't imagine much more lonely.

We'll make fresh air, we'll adapt over time, and we'll need to send enough people to have a minimum viable population if we were serious about this. We also would need to get started as soon as possible, but we would need a better understanding of genetics first to produce organisms that could survive the climate, and I suppose reproduce quickly so that the terraforming could take place within human timespans rather than geological ones.

 

[Tee Kay]

Why?

*channels George Mallory*

BECAUSE IT'S THERE!

 

[Antilogic]

Why?

Because it's floating up there lookin' at us funny.

Stupid Mars.

We oughta punch it in its effing facehole.

As for animals, no way. Mars's atmosphere is 96% CO2 with negligible oxygen. Even with its low overall pressure, it has more than enough CO2 for Earth plants (which get by on 400 ppm now, and used to have much less). Oxygen produced by any photosynthetic organisms that got established would react quickly with iron and other stuff, so it wouldn't persist in the atmosphere.

Not necessarily--the rust color of the dust indicates the iron is already in an oxidized state. And so long as the rate of O2 generation is greater than the rate at which oxidation occurs, there will be a buildup of the gas in the atmosphere.

If you could create a synthetic organism that could burrow through martian rock, survive long periods without water, and metabolically convert oxides to oxygen gas---power to you!

This is a massive energy sink. From a biochemical perspective, we are much better off with a surface-dwelling photosynthetic organism.

 

[classical_hero]

The logistics makes it near impossible.

 

[filli_noctus]

If microbial life were to be discovered on Mars would we see pharmaceutical corporations taking out stakes in the private space industries to push for a biological sample return mission?

 

[Winner]

If we can't salvage Earth we sure as hell won't be able to colonize Mars.

That I agree with. It should be noted that research into how terraform other planets make us more aware of what to do here on Earth.

And seriously, who in their right mind would really want to live on another planet. Weird gravity & radiation messing with your health, no fresh air, even if you & a few others could manage to survive on an alien planet I can't imagine much more lonely.

I in my right mind.

If terran life is to survive long term, it needs to spread beyond Earth. Humans can be the agents of its spread - turning previously non-living balls of rocks into more Earths, with new paths open for evolution.

Mars can be made into something very close to Earth (dense atmosphere, seas, oceans, vast forests and grasslands teeming with animals), yet charmingly different due to the ~40% gravity. Worth a try.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I hold out more hope for Venus than Mars. Research into dealing with its atmosphere could seriously help us to address the problems of unwanted chemicals in our own atmosphere, and in the mean time Venus possesses many elements which we are quickly running out of on Earth, like Helium, which can be harvested from its upper atmosphere. It's nearly the same size as Earth, the one enormous problem is that it has no magnetic field, which kinda sucks.

 

[The_J]

Besides that it might actually already work http://www.nature.com/news/microbial-stowaways-to-mars-identified-1.15249

Dozens of microbial species may have accompanied the Curiosity rover to Mars, where it landed in August 2012. The stowaways withstood spacecraft cleaning methods before the rover's launch, although no one knows for sure whether the bacteria survived the inter-planetary ride.

, we just don't want to do that right now http://planetaryprotection.nasa.gov/about

The mission of the Office of Planetary Protection is to promote the responsible exploration of the solar system by implementing and developing efforts that protect the science, explored environments, and Earth. The objectives of planetary protection are several-fold and include:

• Preserving our ability to study other worlds as they exist in their natural states;
• Avoiding the biological contamination of explored environments that may obscure our ability to find life elsewhere – if it exists;

 

[Kozmos]

Dust and radiation are the big problems on Mars IMO. It eats through our equipment and is quite hazardous for health.

I am reading 2312 by KSR now which deal with inhabiting the various environments of our solar system. He details many techniques on how to accomplish this but I cannot say on how viable they are in the Real World TM. Might post some of them.

 

[Tee Kay]

Radiation/lack of a strong magnetic field seems to be the most intractable issue here, would most agree?

How can this be addressed?