How about setting a "different colony" on Mars?

[miracmert]

I was thinking this question for quite long time. Human settlement on Mars has always been an exciting dream and if we consider MarsOne project, then terraforming has to be done on Mars in order to keep life staying there.

So I was thinking about, why don't we colonize Mars with bacterium first? Shouldn't we try just throwing some aerobic, anaerobic bacterium and algae(for organic compound producement), basic minerals and water so they could use to grow their colony bigger.

I'm not a biologist but I am highly interested at it, and I have always had more knowledge than my classmates when I was in high school

So I'm asking all the biologists here: Is it possible to do so? And also would it be a good clue for us to setting human on there is either a way of euthanasia or a realistic dream?

[RoberTrauma]

Have you ever read the Mars Series by Kim Stanley Robinson? Its a 3 book series that encompasses the entire trip to and terraforming of mars over a couple hundred years. Very in depth and an awesome read. Give it a read. Very informative

[Simon Ross]

Well, a few basic issues...

Firstly I would be wanting to make sure there is no existing life on the planet however small and humble it may be. Personally I couldn't think of a worse crime then to kill of another planet's eco system even if it consisted of nothing more then bacteria hidden below ground.

Secondly, you simply couldn't do it with existing biology no matter how rugged it is. That doesn't preclude bio engineering strains that could survive the conditions in the future, but frankly it's a pretty big ask.

Mars is a TOUGH place to live

[crazyewok]

Well its possible but you would only get certain extremophiles there and doubtful they would do much good. There so many factors and thing we don't know. It not as easy as throwing as few microbes on mars and hopeing for the best. Its a extreme environment so you would have to choice what ones very carefully and we would need the exact conditions on the area we want to send them before we send them and I can only think off the top of my head one that could POSSIBLY survive now and thats Deinococcus radiodurans. We could certainly do some GM tweaking as well to help them adapt quicker but still its would be difficult to create in the short term any sort of sustainable microbiological ecosystem.

Honestly we would need to bring back Martian samples or send people there to take some precise readings. I'm not saying its a stupid idea, infcat I think it deserves some research but its not going to be a simple task.

-Microbiologist

Edited January 10, 2014 by crazyewok

[Scotius]

Interesting question. I think we should answer one question first: Was there ever life on Mars? If yes - did it survive in current harsh environment? If martian life appeared, then died out when conditions deteriorated...well. Life is hard to wipe completely - if local organisms couldn't adapt having tens of thousands years to evolve, then Earth-born organisms wouldn't fare better.

[Klingon Admiral]

Interesting question. I think we should answer one question first: Was there ever life on Mars? If yes - did it survive in current harsh environment? If martian life appeared, then died out when conditions deteriorated...well. Life is hard to wipe completely - if local organisms couldn't adapt having tens of thousands years to evolve, then Earth-born organisms wouldn't fare better.

If there was life on Mars at some point, there is probably still live on Mars somewhere. Life is a nasty condition for any planet, and it has been known to adapt to even the most inhospitable of conditions. Life on Earth would probably even survive the planet being flung out of the solar system, at least in some form. Mars is downright gentle in comparision.

[NovaSilisko]

It would be a better idea (and easier, and cheaper) to simulate martian conditions here on earth in a terrarium sort of thing. You can also reuse the same environment and redo the experiment with various conditions tweaked.

[Skyler4856]

I remember reading somewhere that lichens have survived in simulated Martian environments.

EDIT: found it

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/20120515-earth-life-survive-mars.html

[TheRequimen]

If there was life on Mars at some point, there is probably still live on Mars somewhere. Life is a nasty condition for any planet, and it has been known to adapt to even the most inhospitable of conditions. Life on Earth would probably even survive the planet being flung out of the solar system, at least in some form. Mars is downright gentle in comparision.

Life would most definitely survive if we suddenly found ourselves heading out of the solar system. There's a great short story/book about a black hole or something passing through our neighborhood and taking the Earth with it. (EDIT: It's called, "A Pail of Air".) Not sure about how scientific it is, but the tidal forces caused a lot of earthquakes, but some things made it through. The coolest part about the story was the atmosphere freezing up and falling as snow, with layers of nitrogen oxygen, etc, with a average height of 11.6 meters, if evenly distributed. (EDIT: It might rain those elements first.) Anyway, some people survived, most by places with nuclear reactors to provide unlimited power, like Los Alamos. Interesting story, if dated.

[miracmert]

Different, but nice answers out there. I asked this question because I think human are not going to survive much on Mars if they aren't bringing at least some of Earth lives out there. I believe we should be sure if different types of bacterium and plants can live there so they can have some food circulation. I know there is 95% CO2 in Mars' atmosphere so I think some extreme algae or plants could survive by using Sun light, CO2, water that is filtered from soil (I don't know how but they think they can do it) and human feces.

[magnemoe]

Well, a few basic issues...

Firstly I would be wanting to make sure there is no existing life on the planet however small and humble it may be. Personally I couldn't think of a worse crime then to kill of another planet's eco system even if it consisted of nothing more then bacteria hidden below ground.

Secondly, you simply couldn't do it with existing biology no matter how rugged it is. That doesn't preclude bio engineering strains that could survive the conditions in the future, but frankly it's a pretty big ask.

Mars is a TOUGH place to live

Note that any human landing on Mars will bring plenty of earth bacteria. Pretty much no way to avoid this.

Don't think even modified bacteria would do much good either. You will need to generate some sort of atmosphere first, heating the planet up and perhaps dumping water.

[crazyewok]

Don't think even modified bacteria would do much good either. You will need to generate some sort of atmosphere first, heating the planet up and perhaps dumping water.

Thing is I just dont think mars would be able to hold a decent atmosphere and if could bacteria wouldnt do much to generate on. Bet to just dump tons on industrial manufactureing on mars and dump unrestricted greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

[crazyewok]

Different, but nice answers out there. I asked this question because I think human are not going to survive much on Mars if they aren't bringing at least some of Earth lives out there. I believe we should be sure if different types of bacterium and plants can live there so they can have some food circulation. I know there is 95% CO2 in Mars' atmosphere so I think some extreme algae or plants could survive by using Sun light, CO2, water that is filtered from soil (I don't know how but they think they can do it) and human feces.

It is very possible to likley get earth Microbs to grow. I just dont see though how they could make a dent in trying to set up conditions for plants and crops.

[Ralathon]

It is very possible to likley get earth Microbs to grow. I just dont see though how they could make a dent in trying to set up conditions for plants and crops.

Where do you think our oxygen atmosphere came from? That happened 1.5 billion years before multicellular life even evolved. All thanks to cyanobacteria. Most of our oxygen still comes from them, plants produce very little oxygen in the grand scheme of things. Do not underestimate microbes, they are still the lords and masters of this planet. Without them all the major biological cycles would grind to a halt almost instantly.

[crazyewok]

Do not underestimate microbes, they are still the lords and masters of this planet. Without them all the major biological cycles would grind to a halt almost instantly.

If you read my first comment a Microbiologist I know what I'm talking about.

Yes in the long-term they may be able. But long long long term and after alot more research and gatherd information than we have now.

But short term for say colonisation within the next hundred or say thousand of years no. Plus you have to get the right Bacteria for the job and that right Bacteria may not be able to thrive in the Martian environment. You cant just lob a bunch of Bacteria at mars and expect immediate results

[Simon Ross]

So, expanding on a few of the posts that have already been generated.

First problem Atmosphere....Very simple, Mars simply doesn't have enough, convert every single CO2 molecule to O2 and you are still going to die pretty quickly

Second problem Mass... Mars simply doesn't have enough of it, the reason it lost it's own atmosphere a very long time ago

Third problem Temperature... It's cold, it's really, really cold ! Sure with limitless power you can heat it up, leach gases from the soil, but at the end of the day, the warmer it gets, the quicker the atmosphere you are trying to create gets stripped from the planet

We are never going to terraform Mars, much as I would dearly love it to happen :-(