ESA Conducts Mars Terraforming Experiments On ISS 181
geegel writes "Space is a hostile environment for living things, but small organisms on the Expose-E experiment unit outside Europe's Columbus ISS laboratory module have resisted the solar UV radiation, cosmic rays, vacuum and varying temperatures for 18 months. A certain lichen seems to be particularly happy in open space."
Let us get this out of the way... (Score:5, Funny)
I, for one, welcome our Mars-terraforming lichen overlords.
fuck they gonna get cosmic ray powerz (Score:5, Funny)
Then come back to earth and take us over. Underworld: Rise of the Lichen. Gonna net to get some space reindeer to save us.
Of the space variety (Score:5, Funny)
Re:fuck they gonna get cosmic ray powerz (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, exposure to gamma radiation is going to cause the lichen to turn into a giant green(-er) beast of unstoppable power whenever it gets angry.
Fortunately, lichens are pretty mellow.
Re:Of the space variety (Score:5, Funny)
Re:fuck they gonna get cosmic ray powerz (Score:2, Funny)
Who could have thunk?
Re:Mars (Score:4, Funny)
Re:fuck they gonna get cosmic ray powerz (Score:2, Funny)
We'll be fine as long as their powerz level isn't over 9000.
Re:Venus (Score:4, Funny)
Why go to venus when we can simply terraform earth to have a venus-like atmosphere? We're already well on our way! Mars is a much better place to escape to... I mean, investigate.
Re:Venus (Score:2, Funny)
And now, thanks to the ISS, we'll have both topping for our pizza and athlete's foot when we get there.
Re:fuck they gonna get cosmic ray powerz (Score:2, Funny)
Re:fuck they gonna get cosmic ray powerz (Score:1, Funny)
Swamp Thing
Re:fuck they gonna get cosmic ray powerz (Score:5, Funny)
Underworld: Rise of the Lichen
It's funny because you likened the lichen to Lycans.
Re:Mars (Score:3, Funny)
Meanwhile... (Score:2, Funny)
Obama cancelled NASA.
Re:Venus (Score:5, Funny)
I don't think there's much point to trying to deal with Venus as it is, so the excess atmosphere has got to go.
The solution is obvious, the atmosphere that is in excess on Venus should be moved to Mars.
Then both problems are elegantly solved at once.
I'll leave the trivial implementation details to you.
Re:Mars (Score:1, Funny)
The real goal of this research is to understand the limits to life in extreme environments.
Next test coming up: kittens and puppies. How well do they do in a vaccuum?
Re:Mars (Score:3, Funny)
Pardon the Star Trek analogy here, but wouldn't that be like flinging water balloons into a dry riverbed?
Re:Of the space variety (Score:3, Funny)
* vacuum, vacuum very much! *
Re:Mars (Score:3, Funny)
What, we hadn't figured that out yet by the time ISS construction started?