Future Astronauts Must Deal With Toxic Chemicals In Martian Soil

Thorfinn.au sends this quote from Space.com: "The pervading carpet of perchlorate chemicals found on Mars may boost the chances that microbial life exists on the Red Planet — but perchlorates are also perilous to the health of future crews destined to explore that way-off world. Perchlorates are reactive chemicals first detected in arctic Martian soil by NASA's Phoenix lander that plopped down on Mars over five years ago in May 2008. It is likely both of NASA's Viking Mars landers in 1976 measured signatures of perchlorates, in the form of chlorinated hydrocarbons. Other U.S. Mars robots — the Sojourner, Spirit and Opportunity — detected elemental chlorine. Moreover, orbital measurements taken by the Mars Odyssey spacecraft show that chlorine is globally distributed. [Phoenix principal investigator Peter Smith] said microbes on Earth use perchlorate for an energy source. They actually live off highly oxidized chlorine, and in reducing the chlorine down to chloride, they use the energy in that transaction to power themselves. In fact, when there's too much perchlorate in drinking water, microbes are used to clean it up, he said. Furthermore, seasonal flow features seen on Mars may be caused by high concentrations of the brines of perchlorate, which has a strong attraction to water and can drastically lower its freezing point, Smith told SPACE.com. The high levels of perchlorate found on Mars would be toxic to humans, Smith said."

Anyway

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

In fact, when there's too much perchlorate in drinking water, microbes are used to clean it up, he said.

Can we just pick some bacteria and launch them up there? It's going to happen eventually, anyway. Might as well get it over with.

"But...but we must keep it pure! Must research!"

Ya ya, I agree. However, may I redirect you to "It's going to happen eventually, anyway."

I am surprised

[MyLongNickName]

If there is an energy source in the soil itself, why there isn't an abundant amount of bacteria taking advantage of this. I guess I've come to believe that life will evolve to meet just about any condition, and an energy source seems to be about all it needs. Yet there has been no serious evidence of any type of life currently on mars.

indecisive much?

[Anonymous Coward]

We're not going back to the moon it doesn't make sense, we've been there already, duh!
Mars fucking pwns, let's send everyone there! Even though it's makes the Sahara look like Disneyland
We're gonna mine asteroids! Cos you know, the economy is fucked and there's loads of rocks in space! ...
We ain't going to send people to mars now, it's dangerous!
Mining rocks in space is a stupid idea, there's rocks here!
We're going back to the moon !!!!!!!!!!!

Cut the crap please

Re:Read the signs

[Immerman]

>Mars is even more difficult for human exploration than previously understood

I'm not sure that follows. Yes, Mars is a bit more *hazardous* than previously understood, but it also has more readily-accessible resources (power and liquid water). Which wins out would take more than an arm-chair analysis. Especially since the hazard profile is potentially fairly minimal - when outside they'll need to be in protective suits anyway, and when coming inside they'd want to avoid tracking in a lot of dust anyway just for the nuisance factor. In practice this might just provide an incentive to provide better de-dusters in the airlock. I imagine a quick decon shower would do the trick quite thoroughly. So long as the artificial ecosystem includes microbes that digest the local percholate mix any dust that does get in will be neutralized fairly rapidly, just make sure to wash your hands before eating.

The real questions may actually be:
*How does this effect growing soil from Martian sand? Though technically you don't *need* sand to grow soil, it is helpful for a lot of plant types. I suppose in the worst case microbial pre-treatment would be easy enough to do.
*How does this effect concretes made from Martian sand? They're the natural choice for building material since you need only a small amount of the right binding agent to make large structures. Again you could pre-treat the sand, but that's a lot less convenient for construction-scale activities. Ideally we could develop a cement that actually harnesses the perchlorates for an intensely exothermic curing process that produces an extremely strong and/or airtight crystaline structure.