Slashdot Mirror
DARPA Is Already Working On Designer Organisms To Terraform Mars
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.
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
Wherever You Go, There You Are
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"
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.