ESA Conducts Mars Terraforming Experiments On ISS

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."

Comments

Let us get this out of the way...

[sznupi]

I, for one, welcome our Mars-terraforming lichen overlords.

Re:Let us get this out of the way...

[Ol Olsoc]

I've taken a lichen to them already.

fuck they gonna get cosmic ray powerz

[jollyreaper]

Then come back to earth and take us over. Underworld: Rise of the Lichen. Gonna net to get some space reindeer to save us.

Re:fuck they gonna get cosmic ray powerz

[Chris Burke]

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:fuck they gonna get cosmic ray powerz

[IdleTime]

The Hulks is in reality a lichen?

Who could have thunk?

Re:fuck they gonna get cosmic ray powerz

[kehren77]

We'll be fine as long as their powerz level isn't over 9000.

Re:fuck they gonna get cosmic ray powerz

[Tristanic]

Day of the Triffids wasn't a movie, it was an omen!

Re:fuck they gonna get cosmic ray powerz

[Anonymous Coward]

Swamp Thing

Re:fuck they gonna get cosmic ray powerz

[biryokumaru]

Underworld: Rise of the Lichen

It's funny because you likened the lichen to Lycans.

Re:fuck they gonna get cosmic ray powerz

[Rei]

I can't stop laughing at your post. Next to Lampshade Hanging, my favorite trope has to be Explaining the Joke. Joss, is that you?

Re:fuck they gonna get cosmic ray powerz

[Golddess]

Explaining? I thought they were expanding upon it by adding "liken".

I hope this doesn't count as explaining it. >.>

Of the space variety

[PlasmaEye]

I guess you could say that fungus was lichen space. *crickets*

Re:Of the space variety

[snspdaarf]

Man, oh, man. You owe the internet an apology for that one.

Re:Of the space variety

[LS]

* vacuum, vacuum very much! *

Re:Of the space variety

[whatajoke]

I don't get it.

Re:Of the space variety

[SEWilco]

Well, you see, in space nobody can hear crickets.

Re:Of the space variety

[Ihmhi]

It's a quantum joke. It's both funny and unfunny at the same time. Try turning your monitor around 180 degrees and reading it with a mirror.

Mars

[Chris Lawrence]

The purpose of this isn't really to teraform Mars. That is way too far off in the future. At this point we don't even have an idea when humans will finally get there. The real goal of this research is to understand the limits to life in extreme environments. This can help us to better understand where we might find life and whether it is possible that there might still be life on Mars today. Glad to see some useful research being done on the ISS after all the time and effort to get it up there.

Re:Mars

[Chris Lawrence]

Yes, but it was way behind schedule and for a long time had only a minimum crew. They needed to spend all their time just maintaining the station which didn't leave any time for scientific research. Now, finally, they have a full crew and can actually get down to business.

Re:Mars

[TheRealMindChild]

Imagine it! A dyson sphere of kudzu!!!

Re:Mars

[kenp2002]

The purpose of this isn't really to teraform Mars. That is way too far off in the future.

Actually terraforming a planet with plant life isn't necessarily a slow process at all. If we agree on the idea of human made global warming we have made substantial changes to a planet's ecosystem in a short amount of time.

Given the growth rate of a variety of micro organisms and small less complicated plant life we can induce a massive change in Mar's ecosystem in a short amount of time.

Here is a simple example. Given the growth rate of a species of plant that can survive on Mars. X rate of growth over Y distance. Without any natural predators the upper limit of that growth is R based on resources. Until we hit R in general we are talking near exponential growth (not taking into account localize competition with thins out the existing population.) Given this basic idea the mobility of plant life on Mars could be substantial (We are talking a radius increase of hundreds of miles per year.) You could literally cover an entire planet in a plant (again barring predators and R limits) with the lifetime of a human being.

Obviously there are a multitude of inhibitors to such growth but, if we can confirm there is no existing life on Mars there is nothing preventing us from launching a giant rocket to Mars fill with a good cocktail of microbes, algeas, etc and seed bombing the piss outta the planet and letting natural selection establish an ecosystem. I argue the opposite. Make the planet into a giant industrial factory where raw pollutants are just dumped out the window. Anything capable of living in that environment would have to thrive on said wastes.

Re:Mars

[OolimPhon]

You misunderstand. Actually building the thing has involved a whole lot of new engineering and scientific knowledge.

Doing experiments now it's up there is fine, but just getting it up there taught us a lot (including, the shuttle was a bad idea).

Re:Mars

[sconeu]

Dan Simmions did that in The Rise of Endymion.

Re:Mars

[eleuthero]

I'd like to see them just seed Mars with the lichen now. If it turns out to be problematic, it isn't like it is our own planet (or like it even has life to speak of that we need be concerned about). Put some kudzu cells in the lichen and maybe we can even have Mars go all greenfly on us and then we can spend more on spaceflight in order to be able to flee the galaxy consuming super-lichen

Re:Mars

[Greg Hullender]

On Earth, the Oxygen Cycle is about a million years. Seed Mars with plants, add water, and wait a million years. Presto! Instant oxygen atmosphere.

Of course, advanced technology might cut that to as little as ten-thousand years . . .

--Greg (Why I lost interest in terraforming)

Re:Mars

[SnarfQuest]

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

[JerryLove]

But what will you end up with?

Mars has no magnetosphere, and plants are not going to add one. Radiation will still hit hard, and air will still be stripped away by the solar winds.

Mars has little air, and plants don't generally create new air (they pull carbon from existing air), so it will still be airless.

Given the above, it will also still be freezing (a problem plants will have on Mars that ironically is less of an issue in space, where vacuum is an excellent insulator).

So how "terraformed" will it be? Though it would be cool to have something living there, even if it's not us.

Re:Mars

[sznupi]

if we can confirm there is no existing life on Mars

This one will be hard, Mars is probably too borderline with is invorement to say with high certainity, even if "we haven't found anything yet"

Also, I'm not sure if dumping waste would be productive...yes, some life will hang on; but the resulting biosphere won't be very useful to us.

Re:Mars

[ultranova]

Make the planet into a giant industrial factory where raw pollutants are just dumped out the window. Anything capable of living in that environment would have to thrive on said wastes.

That doesn't make sense. You'd need to lift the products out of Mars's gravity well to get them to Earth - I assume that you didn't mean people to live in the toxic dump planet. If you have that kind of technology, you'd be much better off building your industrial base on asteroids; not only do they have negligible gravity well, but several of them are actually composed of almost pure metals.

Planets are too valuable to waste as toxic dumps, and space-based industry can deliver anywhere with the speed of a shooting star ;).

Re:Mars

[inviolet]

Obviously there are a multitude of inhibitors to such growth but, if we can confirm there is no existing life on Mars there is nothing preventing us from launching a giant rocket to Mars fill with a good cocktail of microbes, algeas, etc and seed bombing the piss outta the planet and letting natural selection establish an ecosystem. I argue the opposite. Make the planet into a giant industrial factory where raw pollutants are just dumped out the window. Anything capable of living in that environment would have to thrive on said wastes.

Why convert Mars into a meat-friendly environment? We already have one of those, and given similar engineering effort, we could turn Venus back into a second. Mars, by contrast, is ALREADY a very nice environment for silicon-based life -- by which I mean AI robots and so forth.

I consider AI robots to be the future of intelligence, which we are blessed/fated/doomed to create. They will absolutely ADORE the cold no-oxygen environment, and the low light conditions are fine for fission-/fusion-/other-powered critters as they will be. So don't mess Mars up, because they can't happily live here on Earth.

Re:Mars

[ultranova]

Mars has no magnetosphere, and plants are not going to add one. Radiation will still hit hard, and air will still be stripped away by the solar winds.

Drop a bunch of ice asteroids to build up the atmosphere, and then one every century or so - or perhaps a constant barrage of small chunks that are vaporized in the upper atmosphere would be preferable? Either way, that should keep the air pressure up, until we can develop the technology to reboot planetary cores.

Re:Mars

[CoolHnd30]

I'd give you a +1 funny if I had the points... I had a good LOL from it :)

Re:Mars

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Pardon the Star Trek analogy here, but wouldn't that be like flinging water balloons into a dry riverbed?

Re:Mars

[ianezz]

Given the growth rate of a variety of micro organisms and small less complicated plant life we can induce a massive change in Mar's ecosystem in a short amount of time.

True, but the resulting ecosystem is not necessarily stable and self-sustaining. As fast as it builds up, it could suddenly collapse.

Re:Mars

[ColdWetDog]

I consider AI robots to be the future of intelligence, which we are blessed/fated/doomed to create. They will absolutely ADORE the cold no-oxygen environment, and the low light conditions are fine for fission-/fusion-/other-powered critters as they will be. So don't mess Mars up, because they can't happily live here on Earth.

Timeout. No more conversations with the Roomba. Outside for you.

Re:Mars

[JerryLove]

Someone should get right on the technology (and engineering) of how to move billions of tons of mass out in space.

I think you underestimate the challenge of doing that.

Re:Mars

[DarthVain]

LOL

OK, do everything you have ever done, but over there...

Re:Mars

[X0563511]

The hard part is keeping the oxygen there. Between the lack of a respectable magnetic field and lower gravity, most of the atmosphere will just spin off and/or get blown away by solar radiation.

Re:Mars

[mrchaotica]

(including, the shuttle was a bad idea)

What, we hadn't figured that out yet by the time ISS construction started?

Re:Mars

[Nazlfrag]

RTFA. They simulated martian conditions, and also exposed them to the raw vaccuum. Even TFS mentions the large temperature variations they were exposed to. Your points are all sound and reason for concern but it does seem life can overcome those obstacles. We may not end up with a human habitable world but we would be closer.

Re:Mars

[Ihmhi]

Well, let's say we figure out what properties of these lichen allow them to survive. Couldn't we eventually genetically engineer things like plants to grow on Mars?

It is an interesting scientific problem. How do you create an atmosphere? It's not like we can just take big ships full of oxygen, open 'em up on Mars, and hope for the best.

Re:Mars

[Ihmhi]

Wasn't the shuttle planned out in like the 50s? For a 60-year-old (designed, 30-years-old built) spacecraft I think the things did pretty damn good. They were mostly reliable. The major failures that we've seen have been on things such as maintenance.

Re:Mars

[MichaelSmith]

Well, in about a million years anyway.

Re:Mars

[X0563511]

True, but if that happens it's lost. You can't reclaim it, or recycle it. It doesn't get converted into other compounds through various processes. It gets blown into space and eventually orbital mechanics coalesces it into a ring or an orbital body recollects it.

Wasteful.

Re:Mars

[MichaelSmith]

Well thats entropy for you.

Re:Mars

[Xest]

"Obviously there are a multitude of inhibitors to such growth but"

There isn't really a but, because this is the core problem. Those inhibitors include water, carbon dioxide, nitrogen for example.

Even if we do (have?) found water on mars it doesn't cover the entire planet. Simply adding lichen to those areas isn't enough to generate rain clouds that would help it spread across the whole planet. Similarly areas with water will quite possibly not be able to provide enough of the other requirements needed.

This is why the discovery of water is fundamental, because you really have to start work on those areas first, and figure out then how you're going to make those areas spread, or somehow generate more water.

There are indeed plenty of lichen that can survive extreme temperatures as in TFA- I remember when crossing Argentina to Chile via the Andes there were vast areas where there appeared to be no life whatsoever apart from the odd guanaco running around (god knows how they survive- brave bastards!), however a closer inspection of rocks up there showed lichen could at least survive. It's probably also worth noting that even some of Earth's newer species of plant, such as the cactus Opuntia compressa or various members of the genus Escobaria have been found hardy down to -120c in the lab (Mars ranges from -123c to +36c). If these can similarly survive the other pressures, then they might in many ways be better candidates in terms of spread (they can survive years between getting water), or ideally, just part of a mix of a combination of plant/fungus species.

But still, those inhibitors to growth aren't just inhibitors, but complete barriers for the most part. They are problems that really must be solved first.

Re:Mars

[kenp2002]

Yes but from a study standpoint who cares! Fire it up and watch, imagine the data you could get!

Re:Mars

[kenp2002]

You are assuming conventional life forms already in existence. Engineering an organism that could function on Mars isn't hardly science fiction anymore. Think of the sheer volume of silicon dioxide on Mars. Engineering an organism that could in a secondary or teritary process crack additional oxygen out of the material is viable. Even developing a synthetic organism to mine an object in that environment is considerably more likely then engineering an organism that could function on asteroids.

Lets look at anerobic bacteria and see what we can get. Water maybe a general catalyst for life here but we are close enough to engineering our own life forms that the possiblility is very close.

Even non-organic "life forms" (nano-bots, etc.) could be deployed over vast distances to facilitate terraforming. The question is energy and there is still a lot of potential energy resources. Hell throw a microwave transmitter in orbit and beam down raw energy for other devices. With no conventional life there "no harm, no foul" if the energy transmission misses once in a while.

It's not open space...

[Lumpy]

It's near earth orbit. INSIDE the magnetosphere which removes a huge amount of radiation from the equation.

Big difference there.

Re:It's not open space...

[RavenChild]

Exactly.

Mars (along with Venus) do not have a magnetosphere in the same way Earth does. They have ionospheres that operate in similar fashion but the magnetic field only deflects a bit of the solar wind.

Re:It's not open space...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is important, but still doesn't rule out the usefulness of the experiment, since many of the panspermia advocates suggest that lifeforms might have evolved in such crazy places as asteroid fields, cosmic dust clouds, and the like.

these cosmic phenomena aren't "open space" either, and in the case of cosmic dust clouds several AU across, there is more than enough dust to stop a good majority of cosmic radiation.

The mere fact that this lichen (which is a complex, multicellular, and even symbiotic lifeform-- as opposed to say-- e.choli) has been able to endure for such a long time out there is pretty impressive for shooting down the "No atmosphere means no life jackass." nay sayers.

Then there is always the interesting situation of food cultivation in deep space, or in very harsh environments (like on the moon; NASA isn't the only agency that can get there.)

As for terraforming though, I would be much more interested in seeding the Venusian atmosphere with thermophilic microbes; much like the kind found in ocean vents, or in geysers.

If these microbes were engineered to produce heat-stable sulfur precipitates as waste products (after consuming sulfuric acid, one of the major greenhouse substances on venus) it could induce global cooling on venus. This is especially true if the precipitate is light in color, because then you would get a double-whammy with the albedo effect.

All in all, I find this kind of research very interesting.

Re:It's not open space...

[sznupi]

CO2 is by far the most important contribution in the case of Venusian temperature. Sulfuric acid just makes the envirment toxic from our point of view.

Venus is a hard case, it doesn't have plate tectonics. Carbon would be mostly left on the surface, eventually returning to atmosphere after reacting with, also released, oxygen.

Re:It's not open space...

[Remus Shepherd]

Not that big a difference, and not in the way you think.

The magnetosphere does nothing about UV radiation, which is the biggest short-term threat from the sun to living things. If you're above the ozone layer, you're getting almost full-strength illumination in UV.

And although the Earth's magnetosphere diverts a lot of the solar wind, it does it in such a way that many high energy particles are trapped in the Van Allen belts, creating regions of near-Earth orbit that have much more particle radiation than the heliosphere. The solar wind has particles up to 100 eV; the inner Van Allen, which the ISS passes through, has energies up to 100 MeV.

So no, it's not 'open space'. It's near Earth orbit, which in some respects is worse than deep space.

Either way, it's a brutal test of endurance for any living thing.

Re:It's not open space...

[jwinster]

This whole thing sounds eerily similar to the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. Great series if you enjoy SciFi books about Mars terraforming.

Re:It's not open space...

[khallow]

the inner Van Allen, which the ISS passes through, has energies up to 100 MeV.

The ISS passes under almost all of the inner Van Allen belt. I understand there is a lobe over South America which the ISS occasionally grazes. It is a better radiation environment than deep space.

Saw this movie

[kehren77]

Val Kilmer rides a old Russian rocket to safety after killing a military robot which for some reason didn't have its search and destroy switch permanently turned to off before leaving Earth.

Venus

[MonsterTrimble]

I don't understand what the obsession with going to Mars is. Frankly I think Venus is where we should target our efforts. It has an atmosphere (albeit hazardous to human life) and is about 20% closer to us then Mars. Granted, Venus' atmosphere is about 97% CO2 but I would think that it would be a lot easier to bioengineer something which would survive and thrive in the Venutian atmosphere while changing the CO2 to Oxygen.

Re:Venus

[Gravatron]

It's all fun and games till someone goes blind from Venus sickness.

Re:Venus

[MachDelta]

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

[TheDarkMinstrel]

Men are running the program - we just want to go home! We're from Mars, ya know?

And now, thanks to the ISS, we'll have both topping for our pizza and athlete's foot when we get there.

Re:Venus

[Bardez]

This reminds me of a report we had to do in sixth grade. Everyone was talking about Mars and I was one of maybe two that thought that Venus, with its C02 atmosphere and near-Earth size made it more desirable to terraform. Of course, my solution to send a (bio)dome with an ass load of A/C units filled with plant life probably wouldn't quite solve the problem.

Re:Venus

[chappers1]

I think the challenge with Venus is bioengineering something that can withstand the surface pressure of 93 bar (9.3 MPa).

Re:Venus

[benjamindees]

Biological terraforming of Venus is pretty much completely written off, mostly because:

1) It would have to float.

2) The products would have to float too, because if they fell to the surface the enormous temperature and pressure would cause them to revert back to CO2.

Venus is an extremely harsh environment.

Re:Venus

[holmstar]

The problem is that it would need to stay airborne (the surface is hot enough to melt lead) and be very resistant to low pH (sulfuric acid rain is kind of a bummer).

Re:Venus

[r_jensen11]

I don't understand what the obsession with going to Mars is. Frankly I think Venus is where we should target our efforts. It has an atmosphere (albeit hazardous to human life) and is about 20% closer to us then Mars. Granted, Venus' atmosphere is about 97% CO2 but I would think that it would be a lot easier to bioengineer something which would survive and thrive in the Venutian atmosphere while changing the CO2 to Oxygen.

Probably something to do with Venus's high temperatures and high air pressure.

"In fact, atmospheric pressure on Venus is about 90 times the atmospheric pressure on the Earth. This would be comparable to water pressure 1000 meters below the surface of the ocean."

Re:Venus

[Nadaka]

Venus is also 800 degrees in the shade at a hundred atmospheres of pressure with acid rain that will dissolve most of the materials we make spacecraft out of in a matter of hours.

Mars also has an atmosphere of mostly CO2, except the temperature, pressure and chemistry is closer to the top of mount everest than the center of an erupting volcano.

Re:Venus

[hufman]

But all the hot women are on Venus. Why are we not directing our efforts towards Paradise?

Re:Venus

[goldaryn]

And now, thanks to the ISS, we'll have both topping for our pizza and athlete's foot when we get there.

Next 'pizza' research: exactly what kind of cheese is the Moon made from? This could solve our mozarella shortages. I think we should be told.

Re:Venus

[DerekLyons]

I don't understand what the obsession with going to Mars is. Frankly I think Venus is where we should target our efforts. It has an atmosphere (albeit hazardous to human life) and is about 20% closer to us then Mars.

Well, there are three reasons for the 'obsession' with Mars.

1. Man has historically been more interested in Mars than Venus.
2. We can actually reasonably reach the Martian surface with both unmanned and [eventually] manned probes.
3. Mars is actually 'closer' than Venus. It's not absolute distance that matters in space travel, but relative velocity. Not only is Venus 'faster' than Mars, it's also closer to the sun which means we actually have to shed energy to reach it. This is harder and takes more fuel than sending the equivalent probe to Mars.

Re:Venus

[pauljlucas]

Out of curiosity, if the theory about how Mars lost most of its atmosphere is because it's a smaller planet, therefore its core cooled faster, therefore its dynamo stopped, therefore its magnetic field stopped which allowed the solar wind to strip the atmosphere away, then why does Venus, which, according to Wikipedia also has no magnetic field, still have such a dense atmosphere? Why hasn't the solar wind also stripped it away?

Re:Venus

[mikael]

You would just need something that could react with the atmosphere to form an inert solid - that would reduce the density of the atmosphere and the pressure.

Re:Venus

[Teun]

The 20% distance advantage of Venus vs. Mars is nothing compared to the problems caused by the Vesuvian atmospheric CO2, pressure and temperature that are all way beyond what we and our technology are used to.

Although we've here on earth found some extremophile life forms that survive or even thrive at temperatures and pressure encountered on Venus but nearly all (simple) living organisms we know could cope with Martian conditions.

I would say it's not difficult to see the low hanging fruit.

Re:Venus

[ChrisMaple]

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.

Pump the excess atmosphere out into space, or find a way to turn most of it into a stable, innocuous solid or liquid compound. Then deal with the excess solar radiation coming in (Make the planet more reflective? Change the orbit? [please be careful not to disturb Earth's orbit.] Put a shade in orbit around Venus?)

Re:Venus

[EvilBudMan]

It's because Mars is the "Red Planet". Don't you see, it's all marketing.

Re:Venus

[holmstar]

The gravity of mars is significantly weaker. I would think that this would make it more prone to loose atmosphere.

Re:Venus

[element-o.p.]

I'm with you re: Venus vs. Mars for terraforming. In addition to all the points you raised, the gravity of Venus is about 90% that of earth (according to http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/Projects/BrowseTheSolarSystem/venus.html). Mars' gravity is approximately 1/3 that of earth. This is important because less gravity == less atmospheric pressure on the surface of the planet. Consequently, the density of the Martian atmosphere is 1% that of earth. That's really freaking thin, even if you are trying to breathe pure oxygen. This site shows that the density at 100,000 feet is roughly 1% that of sea level at earth, and from what I remember reading as a kid who thought the SR-71 was just the coolest airplane ever, pilots above 60,000 feet had to wear pressure suits because a simple oxygen mask couldn't provide enough pressure to sustain consciousness at those atmospheric pressures.

In other words, Total Recall notwithstanding, humans will not ever be able to breathe the atmosphere unaided on a terraformed Mars without some radical genetic engineering.

Re:Venus

[khallow]

I don't understand what the obsession with going to Mars is.

Mars has ground. It's really that simple. Look at all of the things on Earth either built on the ground or made of stuff obtained from the ground. In comparison, there is nothing permanently in the sky on Earth. That situation would have to be reversed on Venus. You'd have to make almost everything out of the Venus atmosphere (that yields carbon, oxygen, sulfur, and nitrogen). Maybe you could run some sort of quick mining trips on the surface using balloons or harvest dust blown from the surface (it should be able to reach the 1 atmosphere platform). That might get you other materials like silicon, aluminum, and a bit of iron. Anything you can't get locally, you need to bring from elsewhere.

Don't get me wrong, I used to work for the only organization I know of (JP Aerospace) that has ever seriously proposed a permanent structure in the sky. Their "Dark Sky Station", which floats around 100 km high (at the very limits of the buoyant part of our atmosphere), is intended as a waystation for Airship to Orbit. If NASA did suddenly propose to colonize Venus, JP Aerospace would be well positioned to take advantage of that impulse.

But it's a very hard problem that probably won't be solved by the time Mars is colonized. I imagine Ceres, which has no atmosphere at all and a very weak 0.03 G gravity, would be colonized before Venus.

Re:Venus

[Hurricane78]

Because... IT’S A TRAP!

Re:Venus

[eleuthero]

We already have been - Wensleydale. It is great in flavor but a poor substitute for any melting cheese.

Re:Venus

[element-o.p.]

I suspect, however, that part of the reason the pressure is so high on Venus is the composition of the atmosphere. We already have organisms that survive in extremely hot, acidic, high-pressure environments on the earth, so it's not impossible to find an organism that could survive in Venus' atmosphere. If we can find such an organism that ingest the heavy molecules in Venus' atmosphere and excrete less dense molecules like O2, then wouldn't the pressure of the atmosphere on the surface of Venus decrease? Assuming, of course, that the heavy, dense molecules that currently make up the atmosphere aren't replaced at a rate greater than they are being processed into something more suitable for human life, that is.

Re:Venus

[element-o.p.]

except the temperature, pressure and chemistry is closer to the top of mount everest than the center of an erupting volcano.

You are off by an order of magnitude (or more). It's more like the temperature, pressure and chemistry at 100,000 feet (references sited in another post above). Everest is only 1/4 the way there (by altitude), and since atmospheric pressure is a *logarithmic* function of altitude, that makes a bigger difference than you might expect.

Re:Venus

[Anonymous Coward]

There are already organisms that are adapted to this kind of extreme; they are right here on earth.

Take for instance, the chemotrophic marine organisms near deep-sea trenches and vents. Specifically, the sulfur reducing varieties.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfate-reducing_bacteria

The hard part is getting them to stay afloat in the lighter part of the atmosphere, in or above the sulfuric acid haze, where the temperature and pressure are more conducive to their habitation.

http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/V/Venusatmos.html

If you couple this with some chemo-lithotropes, like purple sulfur bacteria, (or organisms engineered to use this pathway), then a stable sulfur cycle could be initiated in the upper venusian atmosphere.

What would likely work best, would be to collect atmospheric bacteria from earths upper atmosphere (Yes, germs do live up there. http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/ESD-air-bacteria.html), and perform genetic augmentation on them to introduce the required traits for venusian habitation.

Once you have carbon fixing organisms floating freely in the atmosphere, you can introduce other organisms that produce heat-stable precipitates, that live by ingesting the former.

Such precipitates might be carbon nanotubes, which would be stable in the venusian atmosphere below the sulfur haze zone, which would be low enough in the atmosphere before being rarified back into carbon dioxide that it could effectively put a pinhole in venus's runaway greenhouse effect, and as the surface temperature slowly falls, might allow carbon "snow" to deposit over time.

It would take geological time for this to happen, but if you could retard the greenhouse effect sufficiently, it would eventually happen.

Re:Venus

[Fred_A]

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:Venus

[Taibhsear]

Methinks the sulfuric acid rain and immense pressure at the surface might disagree with you there...

Due to the extremely hostile conditions on the surface, current technology disallows any possibility of colonizing the surface of Venus soon. However, there have been recent speculations about the possibility of developing extensive "floating cities" in the atmosphere of Venus in the future.[125] This concept is based on the atmospheric conditions approximately fifty kilometres above the surface of the planet, where atmospheric pressures and temperatures are thought to be similar to those of Earth. Proposals suggest that manned exploration can be conducted from aerostat vehicles, followed in the longer term by permanent settlements.[125] The existence of dangerous quantities of volatile acids at these heights, however, precludes any short term settlements.

-wikipedia

Not to mention plants tend to not want to uptake CO2 anymore above certain concentrations (concentrations much less than 97%). Look into a protein called RuBisCO. Mars has a better potential for being colonized using current technology.

Re:Venus

[toastar]

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.

This is Genius, Sounds like my Ex's idea to solve world poverty and world hunger at the same time: Just feed the poor people to the hungry people.

Re:Venus

[ckaminski]

Indeed, that really is the smart bit. Grab a few Jupiter/AresV style boosters, and go find Ceres or something like it, and get it into near-earth orbit, say, someplace geosynchronous. Much better destination than either the moon or Mars, and solves the "eggs-in-one-basket" problem.

Re:Venus

[sznupi]

Active volcanically but in a weird way; no plate tectonics, total resurfacing of the planet once in a while. Pretty much whatever gets released or falls on it from space, stays on the surface / in the atmosphere.

Re:Venus

[Anonymous Coward]

This is something that has always riled me up, (no not the Lose VS Loose argument.)

Air has mass! A planet with a rich atmosphere will be heavier, and thus have more mass!

Thus, the more air on the planet, the more massive it becomes. Mars has little atmosphere (due to solar wind ablation over geological time), and as such, is much less massive than the earth, which has liquid oceans and a thick healthy atmosphere.

The "mars doesnt have enough gravity!" folks are pitifully ignoring that there is excessive evidence that Mars had large oceans at one point. This requires a dense atmosphere to keep the water liquid. If mars never had the mass to retain an atmosphere, then it would never have had oceans to begin with.

Instead, I am more apt to believe that mars COULD support a rich atmosphere, if it had a magnetosphere to prevent the solar wind from simply blowing/pinching it off into space. This is because the added weight of the atmosphere would cross the tipping point, and make mars heavy enough to sustain said atmosphere. (as it has previously had in the past.)

Re:Venus

[sznupi]

Regarding 3 - to be fair, Venus can provide some serious aerobraking.

Re:Venus

[sznupi]

Well, then you would have molecules containing large amount of carbon and also free O2 in the same place. Both in immense quantities. In an enviroment with known huge lighting strikes. See the problem?

Re:Venus

[thepotoo]

You've got a lot of replies talking about gravity, CO2, magnetospheric issues, etc.

These problems drop away when you consider a floating city (our atmosphere: 70% N2 / 20% O2 is a lifting gas on Venus). Besides the awesome sci-fi factor, we have the technology, almost literally right now, to put something like this together. Can anyone tell me why it wouldn't work? (apart from funding problems).

Re:Venus

[khallow]

Ceres is way, way too big to move casually. You'd need a long term plan over the span of millennia. But a kilometer wide hunk of rock might be doable. That'd have somewhere between 1 and 3 billion metric tons of stuff in it (depending on the density of the asteroid). Supposedly there is roughly one collision of a 5-10 meter wide asteroid with Earth every year. If that could be put into orbit instead, it'd be several hundred tons of material per year.

The problem is that the asteroid is coming in at something like 25-72 km/s (apparently the upper limit is "sharp" unless the asteroid is on an escape trajectory). In comparison, Apollo reentered Earth's atmosphere at around 11 km/s. So you're looking at dissipating energy that is generally much more than anything humanity has tried before. OTOH, you usually need to dissipate less delta v and energy if you're trying to put the asteroid in a usable orbit (with velocity heading in a similar direction) rather than land it on Earth which is a bit deeper in the gravitational well. So that could be 7 or more km/s less delta v that you need to shed.

Re:Venus

[mcgrew]

It's hot enough to melt metal there. Way harder for machines to exist, impossible for humans. The atmosphere isn't what would kill you, we can live in no atmospghere at all with the proper space suit, it's the extreme heat. I seriously doubt it would be easy to design a suit that could keep you alive on Venus.

Re:Venus

[tmosley]

I wonder if it's easier to add gas to a planet's atmosphere, or to remove it? If removal is simpler, then Venus could well be a better target. You're not going to be going outside on Mars in shorts and a respirator any time soon, but it might be possible on Venus.

Re:Venus

[element-o.p.]

Depends upon what the carbon molecules are. Diamonds and graphite, IIRC, tend not to be terribly reactive to O2. CH4 etc., OTOH...yeah, that could be a problem :)

Re:Venus

[Zerth]

I imagine since Mars has lost its atmosphere, it must have had pretty loose hold on it to be so easily stripped away.

Re:Venus

[hey!]

I shouldn't think that too difficult.

There have been bacteria recovered from deep rock cores that survive under high pressure, low energy environment by carrying out their biological processes very, very slowly. Other bacteria have been found that can survive the near boiling temperatures of thermal springs.

In fact, bacteria that are adapted to live in the supercritical water of deep ocean thermal vents would be a great start. We're talking 400 degrees C, but still liquid because of the immense pressure. Right there you're in the ballpark.

Bacteria recovered from the Mariana Trench grow fine at pressures of 75 MPa.

The real problem is the lack of hydrogen for biological reactions. That's a limiting factor.

Re:Venus

[Nadaka]

Forgive me. My memory of the atmospheric context of mars was not as good as it was for venus. The point however remains valid. Mars is a far more hospitable planet than venus.

Re:Venus

[Chryana]

The mean temperature of Venus is around 460C. The atmospheric pressure is 93 times that of earth. While I don't expect to walk on a distant planet in my lifetime, I would certainly hope we would do terraforming so that humands can one day walk on a distant planet, and this pressure is about 50% higher than the current human tolerance record. There is also no water - and I don't think there is any form of life on earth which can survive without water, at a temperature which will quickly boil any water it might store. As for the distance - who cares if takes a few more months for robotic probes to go to Mars instead of Venus? It's not like it takes more fuel. I don't think your argument to go to Venus instead of Mars makes much sense.

Re:Venus

[pauljlucas]

What does that have to do with the solar wind stripping away the atmosphere?

Re:Venus

[DerekLyons]

Which doesn't help at all with the problem of getting there in the first place.

Re:Venus

[holmstar]

As though you've never bumped the same letter twice while typing. Asshole.

Re:Venus

[holmstar]

I wasn't suggesting that Mars cannot theoretically support a thick atmosphere. Clearly Titan has a thick atmosphere and is much less massive than Mars.

Rather I suggested that absent a strong magnetosphere, the combined mass of Mars and a thicker atmosphere is below the threshold such that gravity could prevent significant loss of said atmosphere over the last few billion years.

Either that, or Venus is currently losing atmosphere at a similar rate to Mars and simply had acquired a much thicker atmosphere at the time the solar system formed.

Re:Venus

[Teun]

With an atmospheric pressure at the surface of Venus of about 90 Bar at 480 degC (1300 psi @ 900 degF) you'd have a problem, even building a suit for it is nigh impossible.

The conditions on Mars are comparatively benign, 6-10 mBar with a temperature from just above freezing to about -120 degC or -200 degF.

On Venus you'd have to get rid of nearly all CO2 and (for pressure) 95% of all gasses, on Mars you 'only' have to add some greenhouse gases and ideally a lot of oxygen.

Transferring various minerals into gasses is much better understood than the reverse.

Re:Venus

[Idiomatick]

You say airborne but not reallly...... 'air pressure' is high enough that anything that can float on water would be perfectly happy growing in the upper atmosphere. And we do have things that can take an acid rain pretty easy.

Re:Venus

[Idiomatick]

Floating on venus takes no energy... It'd be more like building a sub or... a city out of subs. Comparing it to flying things on earth is a little unfair.

Meh though, I think we should triple the space budget (taking out of the military) and go to both.

Re:Venus

[sznupi]

Stripping away the atmosphere is, obviously, only one side of the equation. On the other side you have how much of the atmosphere it is there initially / how it is replenished

Re:Venus

[sznupi]

Of course it does; the only serious burn in the vicinity of Earth (small slingshot from the Moon migh help too) and you're on a highly elliptical orbit intersecting Venus. Orbital mechanics means that your speed will be quite a bit high for Venus orbital insertion, but that's where considerable aerobraking comes in; which means you don't need so much fuel, the initial burn at the Earth might be smaller, you might get away with a smaller launching rocket. Though the spacecraft needs to be properly designed for it (which also adds mass of course); we didn't ever do it because of other priorities for Venus orbiters.

But it isn't conceptually far from what Soviets did with their Venus landers - usually no orbital insertion was taking place.

Re:Venus

[sznupi]

Graphite would be also quite reactive at those pressures and temperatures, I guess. And do you know how possible are microorganisms producing diamond?

Venus will be hard, it has immense quantities of CO2 in the atmosphere. I guess enough to have oceans, if it could be liquified. And look at Earth, it's atmosphere isn't very reactive with its oceans; or not terribly reactive with any significant part of dry surface. But change water with hydrocarbons and...

Re:Venus

[DaleSwanson]

Is your ex Jonathan Swift?

Re:Venus

[Philip_the_physicist]

It's not Wensleydale, but it tastes OK.

Honestly, people's knowledge of astronomy is appalling :)

Re:Venus

[MichaelSmith]

You know, there is enough CO2 on Venus to give a good atmosphere to Mars, Ceres, our Moon and all four Galean moons of Jupiter. And Mercury now that I think about it.

Re:Venus

[khallow]

Floating on venus takes no energy... It'd be more like building a sub or... a city out of subs. Comparing it to flying things on earth is a little unfair.

Floating takes no energy no matter what fluid you are immersed in. We already have the technology to have permanent floating structures in the sky on Earth. We don't because of a number of mundane things. One of the key ones is simply the logistics. You need to supply that structure with stuff it can't make on its own. That logistics problem is very pronounced on Venus where you might not have access to the surface at all.

Further, with the copious solar energy available on Venus, there really isn't a good reason to care about the energy needs of the colony. Even heavier than air vehicles that need to stay in constant motion should be viable.

Re:Venus

[Idiomatick]

Giant electromagnets to collect metal dust? Plants to collect a variety of crap? (If they can reproduce then they are collecting for you) I don't know. I think mars is likely easier because well, it is more familiar to humans. And we've got a hell of a lot more experience digging caves than we do building floating islands.

That said I still think Venus is our best shot for terraforming. Venus is a really shitty place for some reasons buuut trillions of tons of plants would help a large portion of that. While I am not sure if we could get it cool enough for humans to step outside (maybe possible to do it at some altitudes or caves; I don't know).

Mars seems less reperable since it has near 0 atmosphere. AND we can't fix it by some sort of massive boiling of the surface or bringing our own due to the low gravity. So it will never be able to support much life... And I think changing the gravity is a more difficult problem than temperature.

Rise of the Lichens

[192939495969798999]

Werewolves are on the ISS? Sweet!

shameless plug to ISS videos

[giuntag]

ESA just launched a new website for hosting videos - check it out

http://multimedia.esa.int/content/search?SearchText=iss&SearchButton=Go

http://multimedia.esa.int/content/search?SearchText=mars&SearchButton=Go

Pun in 3, 2, 1...

[Logical Zebra]

That moss has taken a lichen to that space station!

Surviving exposure is different than living

[holmstar]

This experiment just shows that the lichen was able to survive long term exposure to space. It doesn't say anything about growth, which is what you would need in order to do any sort of terraforming. It would be nice if they would give a bit more detail on the findings.

Re:Surviving exposure is different than living

[canajin56]

What is living, but a prolonged outbreak of survival? ;)

Re:Surviving exposure is different than living

[holmstar]

Well done sir.

I hope there isn't life on Mars already ..

[Idimmu Xul]

Because after the first phase of this biological warfare invasion one of us is going to be in big poopoo ...

Sure it'll take ages, so start now.

[Colin Smith]

But if we start now, maybe by the time we get there, earth based life will be well established.
 

Meanwhile...

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama cancelled NASA.

Possible terraforming Mars experiment

[mrflash818]

If I remember correctly, the Deep Space One experiment was considered successful.

I wonder if it is at all feasible to use another one to land on a high water contect comet or comet-like asteroid, and have it steer the item such that it impacts Mars.

If that was able to provide enough water, next would be the lichen?

I cannot think of any practical short-term value, except to know we can do it.

Re:Possible terraforming Mars experiment

[sznupi]

...meanwhile, K'Breel was preparing another galzak inspiring message to the Council.

Space Transportation System Orbital Vehicle Man

[HTH NE1]

Space is a hostile environment for living things

In fact, they boil at absolute zero
And there's no matter there for them to live off of
If you tried

But then I'm no scientist
I just work here
As a Space Transportation System Orbital Vehicle maintainer
A Space Transportation System Orbital Vehicle-man

And think I'm going to be late
Getting home for dinner

Re:Space Transportation System Orbital Vehicle Man

[mcgrew]

just work here
As a Space Transportation System Orbital Vehicle maintainer

From your poetry I thought you might be a Vogon ;)

Re:Space Transportation System Orbital Vehicle Man

[holmstar]

Um... sorry to burst your bubble but nothing boils at absolute zero. And the ambient temperature of space is pretty warm, actually. (in terms of the temperature of the sparse distribution of particles out there)

The reason you would freeze in space (besides boiling, which is an endothermic process) is because you radiate energy via infrared light faster than you acquire it via bumping into hot space particles.

Re:Space Transportation System Orbital Vehicle Man

[HTH NE1]

From your poetry I thought you might be a Vogon ;)

Well, I'm certainly no Elton John.

Where's William Shatner when you need him?

[MrEricSir]

Khaaaaaaan!

Terraforming Mars? Check out Earth.

[Cr0vv]

It's scary to imagine Man doing anything like this beyond where he lives. For those who think that "we" should terraform a planet, check out your workbench, or your backyard. Check the lead levels or pcb's in your drinking water. Yeah, better work on not killing everything were you live before "we" try to do this. Besides lying NASA can barely get a rocket in the air these days, let alone pay for it. Crow.

It's not terraforming

[mbone]

These experiments are not about terraforming (Mars, for example, does not have a vacuum at the surface), they are about the exchange of biological material between the Earth and Mars. We know that material can be sent between the two planets relatively gently (by big meteorite impacts); this research makes it almost a certainty that some life could survive the trip.

terraform from a distance

[madcat2c]

I would like them to try the re-entry survival test. I could see humans building big hollow concrete bullets that we could shoot at Mars, would survive re-entry, but shatter when hitting the ground and spread around some hearty plant life.

We could just sit back and shoot these things at mars and pelt it with different plants to see if anything takes. I am guessing we would want to aim for the areas that border the north and south poles, or craters with shade that might have a chance to hold water for more than a few seconds so the plants could get a drink.

Why bother

[Anonymous Coward]

Mr. Obama just neutered our maned space program. Plans for the moon are shattered to say nothing about mars. We can even get into low earth orbit anymore after the shuttle is retired. What a mess. We no longer have any direction for manned space travel. So why are we still talking about this stuff.. Dream on.

s/Simmions/Simmons/

[sconeu]

Damn. That'll teach me to use preview.

Slow rotation of Venus

[sznupi]

Venus rotates on the order of "once per year". WHile this doesn't mean much with its current thick atmosphere, it's really, really not conductive to Earth-like enviroments. Youd would get variations between the harshest Antarctic night and Sahara heat with separation of 100 days between them. The atmosphere would freeze solid on the night side, with day side dominated by evaporation and completelly dry.

Re:Grammer nazi's ftw

[dferrantino]

Mars's Or, more appropriately, "the Martian" Also, it's spelled "grammar"

Are we ready, this time? I sure hope so.

[KlomDark]

But I'm not too sure. We are still pretty uncivilized. Maybe a few more trips through the great red filter.

Venus plus X

[Yergle143]

Because I don't want to live in a place where there is absolutely positively no water, no hydrogen
at all. None. (almost as bad as no nitrogen on Mars -- don't get me started). Oh yeah, acid.

More trouble than it's worth, I'd rather live IN Mercury, ON Ganyamede, or UNDER Ceres.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:No Magnetosphere, No Terraforming!

[holmstar]

It took billions of years for it's atmosphere to get blown away. I'm pretty sure that we could deal with a rate of loss that is that low, at least for many millions of years.

Re:No Magnetosphere, No Terraforming!

[holmstar]

Why? You think that no matter how fast you add atmosphere, it will be ripped away just as fast?

Put a giant Camera filter on it

[Eclipse-now]

Would it be possible (given enough time and energy and XYZ magic technobabble) to put a giant Mars sized 'filter' between Mars and the Sun that would let only the **good** light through, cut out the bad radiation, AND stop the solar wind blowing away the atmosphere?

I'm no physicist, so I don't know if photons can blow away the atmosphere, but if we prevented the solar wind, surely then gravity would take over and keep the atmosphere in? (If we really wanted to? It would probably be easier just to build our own little ONeil habitats... but there's just something about terraforming another planet as a backup ecosystem... Polar Bears on Mars, now that's conservation!)

Is this terraforming?

[physburn]

Perphaps a better description would be mars' forming earth life forms. Now that we have bacteria which have a good chance of surviving on parts of Mars, (not the parts of the surface is highly oxidating soil, which would act like bleach), that doesn't mean it would terraform Mars. We would need to do a lot of simulations to find out what the effect actually would be. Mars starts with such a low gravity that it might not hold oxygen in its atmosphere for very low. Adding a lot of C02 would help. Perphaps giant mirrors aimed at the Poles of Mars, are the way to start.

SpaceColonization Feed @ Feed Distiller

Re:The only link to "terraforming Mars":

[Wardish]

RTFA

They did test for martian conditions, including direct sunlight as well as shaded. /Insanity is highly underrated.

That explains it.

[formfeed]

That explains why the little green men are green.

Still don't know why they are little - or men