DARPA Is Already Working On Designer Organisms To Terraform Mars 136
MarkWhittington writes: Space visionaries dream of a time when human beings will not only settle Mars, but will terraform the Red Planet into something more Earth-like, with a breathable atmosphere, running water, and a functioning biosphere. Evidence exists that Mars was more or less Earth-like billions of years ago before the atmosphere leached away into space and the water became frozen under the ground and at the poles. Terraforming Mars is decades away from the beginning and probably centuries away from the end. But DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is already genetically engineering organisms that will help turn the Red Planet blue, according to a story in Motherboard.
root problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Thought the whole atmosphere issue was due to Mars not having a functioning magnetic field anymore?
Re:root problem (Score:4, Informative)
Re: root problem (Score:4, Funny)
So, you are saying we have to nuke the core of Mars to restart it's rotation? I think I saw a documentary on how we did this here on Earth just after the turn of the century...
Re: root problem (Score:1)
Venus does not have a magnetic field either. It's got a bit too much atmosphere, though. Earth, Mars, and Venus are now all thought to lose atmosphere to solar wind stripping at the sane approximate rate.
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This....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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I thought so too. I was under the impression that Mars has no spinning iron core anymore, so terraforming is all but impossible since there isn't a strong enough magnetic field to prevent the solar winds from stripping away any potential atmosphere beyond what is currently there. What am I missing here?
People who approve funding for DARPA (and others) aren't usually interested in the scientific reality, just the hype.
Re:root problem (Score:5, Interesting)
That has an effect over hundreds of thousands or millions of years, it is possible that an artificial atmosphere would remain usable to us in human timescales without leaching away
High energy particles from the Sun would be another matter.
Without magnetic fields to prevent them from hitting the surface they would continue to be a threat to us an our electronics
Re:root problem (Score:4, Informative)
Without magnetic fields to prevent them from hitting the surface they would continue to be a threat to us an our electronics
In Kim Stanley Robinson's books they solved this by living underground until they could get shielded buildings built aboveground. Their vehicles were also shielded. Presumably one would use hardened electronics.
Re:root problem (Score:5, Interesting)
From a biological perspective, the major problem is that there is no low hanging fruit in terms of biological energy sources on mars, and not enough water for any type of surface colonization with methane and CO2 generating microbes. So you couldn't harvest the limited sunlight on the surface. You'd need to hope tor subsurface water where you would be limited to slow metabolizing extremophiles that eat rock and produce gas. They would not generate enough atmosphere over any kind of reasonable time frame, and then on top of that thestripping effect from the solar wind and lack of magnetic field would negate most of the outgassing that occurred from the microbes. If it could have been done by living microbes, it probably already would have by Martian microbes. If they couldn't do it, we probably can't either.
Re:root problem (Score:5, Interesting)
If it could have been done by living microbes, it probably already would have by Martian microbes. If they couldn't do it, we probably can't either.
I largely agree with you. The energy would have to come from somewhere else. In the Mars trilogy, they achieve the most early success by deliberate greenhouse gas production. Engineered bacteria have little effect. So even science-fiction agrees with you... and has for a long time.
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What greenhouse gas is going to help the Martian atmosphere which is already 95% CO2?
Any, if you release enough.
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What greenhouse gas is going to help the Martian atmosphere which is already 95% CO2?
The book isn't online, but the mix was called the Russell Cocktail [kimstanleyrobinson.info].
Water Vapor (Score:2)
So here is an idea... no idea of effectiveness, though that could be tested in a lab. Implementation like any terraforming or atmosphere creation scheme is all pretty fantastical. Anyway I know from reading various sources that water, specifically tanks of water can be used as effective shielding against radiation. What if when they are designing what the atmosphere is to be consisted of, they attempt to make it at certain levels pretty soupy with suspended water vapor. A couple km thickness of the stuff mi
Fallout 4 (Score:2)
Then again, perhaps the water would absorb the radiation, creating "Rad Rain", which can't be good.
Mars prospector: "A Rad Rain is commin' sonny, I can feel it in me bones. Best take cover in a local vault until it passes through I reckon."
Re:root problem (Score:4, Interesting)
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One of the reasons I think Venus is a better planet to terraform. It has an atmosphere, we just need something that will break down carbon and sulphur dioxides. The first is easy, and I bet we could engineer something to do the second.
Magnetic Field? (Score:2)
I always thought the main issue with life on mars was the lack of a magnetic field
On earth we have a big lump of metal spinning at the core, this generates the field needed to protect us from the solar wind
but in the case of mars it's theorised that this isn't the case
without a magnetic field, this means more solar wind
lots of radiation goodness and thinner atmosphere since the solar wind blasts the edge of the atmosphere away from the planet, similar to constantly thinning it out
also less pressure equals l
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Cue the "Total Recall" references.
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Re:Magnetic Field? (Score:4, Interesting)
Start with caves and bunkers. Terraform and generate anthropogenic atmosphere. See what happens: if we don't get off this orb, we are destined for extinction.
28,000 workers died to bring you the Panama Canal. What is an acceptable human sacrifice for a whole frigging planet?
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What ever dooms us on Earth would likely also doom us on Mars. For example, if a mad invader wanted to take over everything, he/she would come to take Mars also. If run-away AI takes over, it will also likely infect Mars colonies.
I suppose certain mistakes like LHC producing run-away black-holes, or one-off suicidal acts are less likely to spread to Mars, but Mars is so close that most human-created maladies would also put it at risk.
An interstel
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Megavolcanoes, global drought, nuclear winter, large asteroid impact. It is unlikely that any of these occurences on Earth would reach Mars (if Mars already has a self-sustaining colony).
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I'm pretty sure our biggest risks are human-based. The frequency of natural mega-disasters is roughly about once per 50 million years. Yet Cold War mistakes almost triggered a nuke winter multiple times in the past 60 or so years. Humans are still stupid, with ever bigger weapons. The ability of small groups to cause big destruction is on an upward trend.
And a global drought is unlikely to wipe out every human (unless it's part of some other problem).
Our biggest risk is us.
A Mars colony will improve our od
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I tend to agree, and that's why I said "if we make it that far" near the end.
However, we don't need near-light-speed (near c) ability to colonize extra-solar planets. The ships can be multi-generational and use something like the original Orion project's propulsion to get roughly 5% of c. We perhaps have the technology even now if we spent enough. FTL is merely a bonus.
The key unknown here is whether AI *or* extra-solar travel ability (EST) will move faster. Existing AI is still a far cry from human-like
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We can put a nuclear reactor in space to power a colony ship if we really wanted to. True, we lack practical practice, but there is no known barrier to doing it (money & treaties aside).
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You know what's interesting about the threats you listed? They'd ALL leave Earth more habitable than Mars, even if more than one happened. At this point, having some Mars-specific technology around might be useful, but not that there'd be people on Mars.
Now, suppose Earth was instead eaten by a giant mutant space goat. At that point, human life on Mars lasts a bit longer, then dies. The only way to save the species on a planet that requires high tech just to live is to have a large population (100K *
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What ever dooms us on Earth would likely also doom us on Mars. For example, if a mad invader wanted to take over everything, he/she would come to take Mars also. If run-away AI takes over, it will also likely infect Mars colonies.
I suppose certain mistakes like LHC producing run-away black-holes, or one-off suicidal acts are less likely to spread to Mars, but Mars is so close that most human-created maladies would also put it at risk.
An interstellar or extra-solar colony or ship would have a better chance. Just don't tell The Borg where you are going because they'll probably be able to move faster than us.
Agreed, but even an extra-terrestrial settlement on our rather generically labelled moon would be a head start to figuring out the learning curve for preserving human life off of this planet.
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No, because the technologies for Earth-to-Mars travel versus interstellar travel are too different to have significant cross-usage. For example, a multi-generational interstellar ship will probably have to rotate (portions) to provide gravity to the inhabitants and thus the zero-gravity survival issues of a Mars trip are mostly moot.
I agree there are some lessons that are usable from a Mars mission, but it's spending a heck of a lot for marginal trickle. If we could have both, great, but given an either/or
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In order to be abled to say "a small step for a man ... etc" you have to be abled to walk. If we don't know how to set foot on another planet in our own neighbourhood, how should we accomplish this light years away, after hundreds or even thousands of years of travel?
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Perhaps I'm not explaining the tradeoffs I perceive well. We should put our humans-in-space research toward interstellar ships similar to the original Orion project (early 60's), for reasons given in nearby replies.
I'm not convinced going to Mars is the best way to get such research and experience. We need more experience with spin-based gravity ships and NON-chemical propulsion. Doing a slightly-bigger Apollo-to-Mars is not in that direction.
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WW3 would essentially turn Earth into Mars. If we have self-sustained-colony technology on Mars, we'd have it on Earth also.
And an epidemic is very unlikely to wipe out every human. The only chance of that I see is an engineered pathogen, and the builders of that would probably find a way to get it to Mars also if wiping out everyone is their goal (or it may accidentally end up there in a shipment). If it's deadly enough to wipe out 100% of Earth humans, chances are it would end up contaminating Mars also
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Simple. We'll make our own.
I figure it will take a loop around Mars equator carrying 850 million Amperes to get something similar to Earth's magnetic field strength. Figuring a Niobium-Tin superconductor (200,000 A/cm^2 critical curent density) that would take a superconductor of about 70 cm across.
See how easy an engineering solution is. I'll leave the details to the subcontractors to work out.*
*I used to work for Boeing. How did you guess?
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But you don't need to shield the whole planet, just the part where humans live.
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You have to shield everything you want to cover with an atmosphere. If you are happy living under a dome, then a much smaller magnetic field will protect against the solar winf impinging on the dome. But if you want to terraform the entire planet, you have to keep the solar wind from 'boiling off' the atmosphere even from the parts you are not living on.
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I was under the impression that the loss of atmosphere was extremely slow, and that any technology that could terraform the planet could easily keep pace with the loss.
I was just talking about keeping the cosmic rays from mutating people and breaking electronics.
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In a ratio of 75% niobium to 25% tin as you'll be wanting for your superconductor [americanelements.com], you'll be needing about 6.2 million cubic meters (53.1 million metric tonnes) of niobium and 2.1 million cubic meters (15.5 million metric tonnes) of tin, presuming you don't have too much wastage. (I've already given you a little wiggle room with my rounding of both numbers. You're we
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Wait...aren't you the guy who maintains that climate change on earth isn't a problem that needs to be solved?
Not over the course of a century. But it might be at some point after that. And there's always a chance I'm wrong.
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So why start solving a problem now when we can wait until the last minute!
That is stupid. Because we have more than one priority. After all, if climate change or whatever it gets called in a century were the only thing we cared about, then we could solve simply by killing 90% of humanity off. Nothing else is as effective, especially if you are in a hurry.
And why is it special to solve that particular problem now rather than the other millions of problems which we could also be solving right this minute?
You shouldn't sell yourself short - it's almost a certainty you're wrong!
If only you had evidence to back your opinion.
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Exactly. So why is it that we can't address climate change now?
Cost/benefit. Sure, we could do something now, but why?
Here ya go!
Sorry, that's not evidence. You'd have done something cute whether I was mostly right or wrong. So I can't distinguish between hypotheses using that link.
Wasted effort? (Score:2)
I'm no saying we shouldn't explore other worlds,just that we should start our explorations from secure footings...
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A variation of "we should fix our problems at home first!" There will always be problems at home. There will always be environmental issues on earth. 6 billion+ humans on earth, we can do 2, maybe even 3 things at once just fine.
We can't just keep using science and engineering (Score:3)
Surely if we have the technology to turn a dead worl into a living one, we must have the technology to properly maintain an already living one.
Well yeah, the earth is 97% terraformed, we just need to get it a few degrees cooler. :-)
We can't have a technological solution to global warming, we can't have climate engineering, that doesn't forward the political agendas of centralization of authority and redistribution of wealth. Only political/social solutions to global warming are acceptable. We can't just keep using science and engineering to escape malthusian(-like) catastrophes.
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The consequences of a mistake in re-engineering Earth's climate are considerably higher than on Mars.
If we have a future is climate engineering ... (Score:2)
The consequences of a mistake in re-engineering Earth's climate are considerably higher than on Mars.
Yes, that's why you do small scale things first. Things that are transitory like cloud seeding to reflect sunlight. It takes a substantial effort to screw things ups. We didn't get to the current situation through a few small or medium scale experiments.
Plus there is really no alternative. Greening the economy/industry won't happen in time. Demand for power will increase as billions enter the middle class and demand their little luxuries and status symbols. You can wish and wish and wish that solar and w
Re:Wasted effort? (Score:5, Informative)
You'll be happy to hear that is part of the plan:
"DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office is working on designer organisms that will not only help to terraform Mars, but will clean up environmentally ravaged areas on Earth. Such organisms would be used to clean up toxic waste and oil spills, for example. Hardy organisms could be tailored to make the deserts bloom. Other organisms could remove carbon dioxide, considered by many to be a greenhouse gas, from the atmosphere more quickly"
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Surely if we have the technology to turn a dead worl into a living one, we must have the technology to properly maintain an already living one.
Oh, we do... it's called a "bullet".
Re:Wasted effort? (Score:4, Interesting)
That's an interesting point, but it's not necessarily true. We can take bigger risks on a dead world, or even perform actions that poison in one way and improve it in another, and worry about cleaning up the poisoning later. The current world must not go through an intermediate "dead world" state.
The risks can even help us prove concepts for the earth.
Also, the timescale for terraforming Mars is surely much longer than the timescale for improving Earth. It's an interesting idea at least.
Designer Organisms (Score:2)
are the back to the 90's style?
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I was hoping to find designer orgasms
Designer Orgasms (Score:2, Interesting)
on Mars would be awesome! Then I reread the headline more closely...
Re: Designer Orgasms (Score:2)
An easier approach might be to modify ourselves (Score:3, Interesting)
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It seems to me that it would be far easier to adapt ourselves to Mars by modifying our genetics than to change the characteristics of an entire planet.
The point is not having mars support some sort of life. The point is so that we (literally us, or our descendants) can go there. Given a sufficient amount of genetic tinkering and you have something that is not "us", and mars would seem to require quite a bit of tinkering.
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If we ever do get around to a project this large in scale, both efforts will probably occur. Mars will be modified toward human habitability, and a human species "fork" will be engineered to meet it halfway. Because of this we wouldn't want to use the term terraforming, exactly. How about 'bioforming'?
Best of all: Nobody who is anti-GMO would want any part of this, and good riddance. Less woo will mean more progress in every field.
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I think the whole point is the environment on Mars is so hostile to life you, if you were to make that approach work the leap you would need to make would be like the one made in the movie Transcendence....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Technically feasible, politically impossible. We can't even get the paranoid reactionaries on this planet to support the idea of using our knowledge to cure genetic diseases. I'm sure you've heard all the arguments. Any proposal that suggests use of science and technology to select or de-select specific genetic traits generates screams of protest. You get all the "master race" bullshit and hear about how rich people will give their kids genetic advantages and blah, blah, blah.
I'd like nothing better tha
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Technically feasible? Exactly what do you want to create by fiddling with the human genome? You're going to make it able to survive by breathing carbon dioxide at very low pressures? Able to subsist with approximately no water? What's the new human supposed to eat? Mars is far beyond survivable just by fiddling with our genome.
this is why we can't have nice things (Score:1)
Can we at least learn all about the planet in detail before we go destroyi... i mean "modifying" it?
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Can we at least learn all about the planet in detail before we go destroyi... i mean "modifying" it?
Terraforming will most likely take centuries. There's plenty of time to study the barren rocks and their chemistry.
Now if they are not barren, some delay for additional study time may be warranted.
Personally I think we'll see habitats on moons and asteroids before we see planet wide terraforming. The economics of various activities and industries may prefer low G / micro G. There will probably be plenty of time for scientific expeditions to the gravity wells during all this.
But what about nitrogen? (Score:3, Informative)
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When you say "bound up in the soil" do you mean chemically combined in oxides?
Because when you extract the oxygen from an whatever-it-is oxide it a) takes a lot of energy, and b) the remaining whatever-it-is tends to have a literally burning desire to get its oxygen back.
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Well what you wrote before was
which must be the worst typo ever.
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Not enough gravity to hold the atmosphere (Score:5, Interesting)
The surface gravity on Mars is 38% of that on Earth [wikipedia.org]. The lower gravity of Mars requires 2.6 times Earth’s column airmass to obtain 100 kPa pressure at the surface. Mars also lacks a magnetosphere, which poses challenges for mitigating solar radiation and retaining atmosphere. The lack of a magnetosphere is thought to be one reason for Mars's thin atmosphere. Solar-wind-induced ejection of Martian atmospheric atoms has been detected by Mars-orbiting probes. Earth abounds with water because its ionosphere is permeated with a magnetosphere. The hydrogen ions present in its ionosphere move very fast due to their small mass, but they cannot escape to outer space because their trajectories are deflected by the magnetic field. Venus has a dense atmosphere, but only traces of water vapor (20 ppm) because it has no magnetic field. The Martian atmosphere also loses water to space. Earth's ozone layer provides additional protection. Ultraviolet light is blocked before it can dissociate water into hydrogen and oxygen. Because little water vapor rises above the troposphere and the ozone layer is in the upper stratosphere, little water is dissociated into hydrogen and oxygen
Mars is stupid (Score:5, Interesting)
Mars presents untold challenges because it's so bloody cold, it's atmosphere is so thin and it's magnetic field is non-existent. We should be FAR more interested in Venus. I'd love to see what would happen if we dumped a canister of extremeophile bacteria into Venus. They could remove the sulfur from the atmosphere in time and actually allow the heat that makes Venus a hell to escape into space. And it would be FAR easier to manipulate Venus into loosing atmosphere than it would be to gain atmosphere on Mars. Venus also has a strong magnetic field like the earth. We'd also have the advantage on Venus of being able to live in the clouds. Normal earth air and earth pressures would float in the Venusian atmosphere. Not only that but if we can learn to slow the runaway greenhouse effect on Venus it would only help us on earth.
We like mars because we can land on it without problems but it's devoid of life for a reason. Venus is far more interesting in my opinion. We have microbes on earth right now that could easily survive on Venus. This isn't true with mars because the UV on mars will kill even microbial life.
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Mars has water, Venus doesn't.
Re: Mars is stupid (Score:1)
Venus has far more water than mars. Its all sulfuric acid, but it routinly rains on venus in the upper atmosphere where the temperatures are low enough for liquid water to exist. The only trick with venus is neutralizing the sulfer. It's what makes the planet take up heat so easilly and keep that heat. Thats what extremeophile bacteria do, they neutralize sulfer and extract the energy from the reaction to live. Its actually one if the theories for how life on earth evolved, that the extremeophiles were firs
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All very good points, but let's consider that colonization may involve a bit of compromise. Maybe in the best case we continue to need respirators and good shelters. Is that unacceptable? Doesn't mean it's not useful to increase the surface temperature, release certain gases, start some form of food production.
The stability and accessibility of Mars remains very important at our present stage of technology. We aren't going to wait for terraforming to complete before we start colonizing. It's a major ad
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Although it would really stink for the first colonists.
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We have microbes on earth right now that could easily survive on Venus.
Eh? We have microbes that could survive as long as they stayed aloft in the Venusian atmosphere. At the surface of Venus, all life as we know it would die from the extreme heat. 400+ Celsius is no picnic for DNA and all life that we are aware of is based on DNA.
According to the summary of this paper: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu... [nih.gov]
DNA begins to completely break down at 190C (in dry conditions).
Floating them in the atmosphere is quite doable and is a great idea. You are absolutely correct that we should co
Maybe Terraform Earth First? (Score:2)
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There can't be so much as a microbe... (Score:2)
or the show's off.
Kinda useless, because (Score:2)
Without a magnetosphere to hold the atmosphere on the planet, the sun's solar wind will keep stripping mars's atmosphere off the planet.
Global warming aka Climate change (Score:1)
Did all those martian cars cause their global warming?
Land for Sale (Score:1)
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Just think, now you can jump high enough to break your own legs when you fall!