NASA Announces that Potatoes Can Grow Under Mars Atmosphere and Soil

[westwall]

Mars is probably not terraformable. It has too low a gravity to retain any more than an exoatmosphere.

Mars once had an atmosphere, and it slowly leeched away over millions of years.

We could terraform it for a much shorter period for our needs, constantly renewing/replenishing it.

Yes, we probably could, but the energy cost would probably be best spent elsewhere.

 

[Old Rocks]

Pretty much for the moon and Mars, dome structures deep enough to not be susceptible to solar flares. For mining and metal production, probably the asteroids. Going to take some time. Measured in generations.

 

[The Great Goose]

Trump should make it a priority that we go to Mars. That would be fucking awesome.

Far better would be to colonize the Moon. Build a viable colony there, and the rest of the Solar System is opened wide for you.

A space elevator would do the job, to a satellite.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Yes, we probably could, but the energy cost would probably be best spent elsewhere.

That depends on how easily we can produce energy.

I have a pretty good feeling that some form of nanofusion is going to be providing almost free power to the civilized world in the not too distant future.

 

[westwall]

Pretty much for the moon and Mars, dome structures deep enough to not be susceptible to solar flares. For mining and metal production, probably the asteroids. Going to take some time. Measured in generations.

Maybe two. If we put our mind to it we could colonize the Moon in a generation. The next generation would begin the proper exploration of the Solar System.

 

[westwall]

Yes, we probably could, but the energy cost would probably be best spent elsewhere.

That depends on how easily we can produce energy.

I have a pretty good feeling that some form of nanofusion is going to be providing almost free power to the civilized world in the not too distant future.

i hope so. I doubt it, but I hope so.

 

[QuickHitCurepon]

Trump should make it a priority that we go to Mars. That would be fucking awesome.

Far better would be to colonize the Moon. Build a viable colony there, and the rest of the Solar System is opened wide for you.

The moon first as we terraform Mars, then focus on building permanent settlements on Mars as we start to terraform Venus.

Even if it works, I'd think it would take very many years to change the atmosphere of Mars.

NASA unveils plan to surround Mars with a magnetic field | Daily Mail Online

NASA scientists have proposed a radical idea to launch a magnetic field around Mars, with hopes it could protect the red planet from intense solar wind and allow humans to explore alongside rovers.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Even if it works, I'd think it would take very many years to change the atmosphere of Mars.

NASA unveils plan to surround Mars with a magnetic field | Daily Mail Online

NASA scientists have proposed a radical idea to launch a magnetic field around Mars, with hopes it could protect the red planet from intense solar wind and allow humans to explore alongside rovers.

With genetic engineering and exponential growth it could be done in a short time.

Imagine genetically engineered bacteria that take in CO2 and release Oxygen and Nitrogen and thrive in the Martian habitat?

The planet would be covered in Oxygen in a couple of decades tops, lol.

 

[EverCurious]

hmm if you dig deep enough, even on mars, you could find a "temperate" zone that would prevent the tator's from freezing, but then you're lacking sunlight... I'm going to guess they've got some natural anti-freeze variety. Water expansion is the killer in freezing, however there are natural solutions - like arctic frogs, who basically super saturate their water into a sugar solution that won't freeze. Potatoes are heavy starch and that starch turns to sugar under the right conditions and sugar solutions don't freeze so easily (which is why frozen fries work.) That said, a raw tator that's frozen will be mushy unless it's flash frozen - though even "mushy" they still make good mashed tators, if a bit darker than usual heh

 

[westwall]

Even if it works, I'd think it would take very many years to change the atmosphere of Mars.

NASA unveils plan to surround Mars with a magnetic field | Daily Mail Online

NASA scientists have proposed a radical idea to launch a magnetic field around Mars, with hopes it could protect the red planet from intense solar wind and allow humans to explore alongside rovers.

With genetic engineering and exponential growth it could be done in a short time.

Imagine genetically engineered bacteria that take in CO2 and release Oxygen and Nitrogen and thrive in the Martian habitat?

The planet would be covered in Oxygen in a couple of decades tops, lol.

Based on how long it took for the Earth to generate an atmosphere with free oxygen I think you are looking at centuries. And that is with the maximum amount of genetic engineering to do what you wish. It took over a billion years for the Earth to generate it.

 

[CarlinAnnArbor]

hmm if you dig deep enough, even on mars, you could find a "temperate" zone that would prevent the tator's from freezing, but then you're lacking sunlight... I'm going to guess they've got some natural anti-freeze variety. Water expansion is the killer in freezing, however there are natural solutions - like arctic frogs, who basically super saturate their water into a sugar solution that won't freeze. Potatoes are heavy starch and that starch turns to sugar under the right conditions and sugar solutions don't freeze so easily (which is why frozen fries work.) That said, a raw tator that's frozen will be mushy unless it's flash frozen - though even "mushy" they still make good mashed tators, if a bit darker than usual heh

If you're gonna grow ANYTHING on a planet with virtually no atmosphere and temps approaching that of 'dry ice' (frozen carbon dioxide), you do it under a dome with stable temperatures and an atmosphere.

Try growing a garden in the dead if winter. That's what mars is. Winter on the moon!

 

[JimBowie1958]

With genetic engineering and exponential growth it could be done in a short time.
Imagine genetically engineered bacteria that take in CO2 and release Oxygen and Nitrogen and thrive in the Martian habitat?
The planet would be covered in Oxygen in a couple of decades tops, lol.

Based on how long it took for the Earth to generate an atmosphere with free oxygen I think you are looking at centuries. And that is with the maximum amount of genetic engineering to do what you wish. It took over a billion years for the Earth to generate it.

You are not really thinking about the exponential growth thingy. The genetically engineered bacteria would have ZERO PREDATORS.

 

[westwall]

With genetic engineering and exponential growth it could be done in a short time.
Imagine genetically engineered bacteria that take in CO2 and release Oxygen and Nitrogen and thrive in the Martian habitat?
The planet would be covered in Oxygen in a couple of decades tops, lol.

Based on how long it took for the Earth to generate an atmosphere with free oxygen I think you are looking at centuries. And that is with the maximum amount of genetic engineering to do what you wish. It took over a billion years for the Earth to generate it.

You are not really thinking about the exponential growth thingy. The genetically engineered bacteria would have ZERO PREDATORS.

Other than the incredibly hostile environment, and the fact that Mars is pretty darned big.

 

[Old Rocks]

With genetic engineering and exponential growth it could be done in a short time.
Imagine genetically engineered bacteria that take in CO2 and release Oxygen and Nitrogen and thrive in the Martian habitat?
The planet would be covered in Oxygen in a couple of decades tops, lol.

Based on how long it took for the Earth to generate an atmosphere with free oxygen I think you are looking at centuries. And that is with the maximum amount of genetic engineering to do what you wish. It took over a billion years for the Earth to generate it.

You are not really thinking about the exponential growth thingy. The genetically engineered bacteria would have ZERO PREDATORS.

The blue green algae had zero predators. Took a long time, billions of years, to oxygenate the atmosphere to the point where multi-cellular life could exist.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Other than the incredibly hostile environment, and the fact that Mars is pretty darned big.

Ok, the incredibly hostile environment thingy:
Extremophile - Wikipedia

In the 1980s and 1990s, biologists found that microbial life has an amazing flexibility for surviving in extreme environments—niches that are extraordinarily hot, or acidic, for example—that would be completely inhospitable to complex organisms. Some scientists even concluded that life may have begun on Earth in hydrothermal vents far under the ocean's surface.[3] According to astrophysicist Dr. Steinn Sigurdsson, "There are viable bacterial spores that have been found that are 40 million years old on Earth—and we know they're very hardened to radiation."[4] On 6 February 2013, scientists reported that bacteria were found living in the cold and dark in a lake buried a half-mile deep under the ice in Antarctica.[5] On 17 March 2013, researchers reported data that suggested microbial life forms thrive in the Mariana Trench, the deepest spot on the Earth.[6][7] Other researchers reported related studies that microbes thrive inside rocks up to 1900 feet below the sea floor under 8500 feet of ocean off the coast of the northwestern United States.[6][8]According to one of the researchers, "You can find microbes everywhere—they're extremely adaptable to conditions, and survive wherever they are."[6]

Astrobiologists are particularly interested in studying extremophiles,[16] as many organisms of this type are capable of surviving in environments similar to those known to exist on other planets. For example, Mars may have regions in its deep subsurface permafrost that could harbor endolith communities.[16] The subsurface water ocean of Jupiter's moon Europa may harbor life, especially at hypothesized hydrothermal vents at the ocean floor.

Recent research carried out on extremophiles in Japan involved a variety of bacteria including Escherichia coli and Paracoccus denitrificans being subject to conditions of extreme gravity. The bacteria were cultivated while being rotated in an ultracentrifuge at high speeds corresponding to 403,627 g (i.e. 403,627 times the gravity experienced on Earth). Paracoccus denitrificans was one of the bacteria which displayed not only survival but also robust cellular growth under these conditions of hyperacceleration which are usually found only in cosmic environments, such as on very massive stars or in the shock waves of supernovas. Analysis showed that the small size of prokaryotic cells is essential for successful growth under hypergravity. The research has implications on the feasibility of panspermia.[17][18]

On 26 April 2012, scientists reported that lichen survived and showed remarkable results on the adaptation capacity of photosynthetic activity within the simulation time of 34 days under Martian conditions in the Mars Simulation Laboratory (MSL) maintained by the German Aerospace Center (DLR).[19][20]

On 29 April 2013, scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, funded by NASA, reported that, during spaceflight on the International Space Station, microbes seem to adapt to the space environment in ways "not observed on Earth" and in ways that "can lead to increases in growth and virulence".[21]

On 19 May 2014, scientists announced that numerous microbes, like Tersicoccus phoenicis, may be resistant to methods usually used in spacecraft assembly clean rooms. It's not currently known if such resistant microbes could have withstood space travel and are present on the Curiosity rover now on the planet Mars.[22]

On 20 August 2014, scientists confirmed the existence of microorganisms living half a mile below the ice of Antarctica.[23][24]​

And Mars is a pretty big place thingy:

If a colony of bacteria grow at a rate of doubling every day, and we spread them over a one meter surface, at the end of:
7 days the bacteria spread over 128 square meters
14 days the bacteria spread over 16,384 square meters
21 days the bacteria spread over 2,097,152 square meters
30 days the bacteria spread over 1,073,741,824 square meters
38 days the bacteria spread over 274,877,906,944 square meters
45 days the bacteria spread over 35,184,372,088,852 square meters
52 days the bacteria spread over 4,503,599,627,370,496 square meters, or 31 times the total surface area of Mars (144,798,500,000,000 square meters)
The surface of Mars would be covering the entire surface of Mars half way through the 47th day with the bacteria spread over 199,032,864,766,430 square meters.

Never underestimate the power of exponential growth friend.

And doubling daily is a rather slow growth rate for bacteria from what I gather.
Considering that these hypothetical bactgeria would have no predators, it is a very conservative estimate, I suspect.

 

[Old Rocks]

Solar UV irradiation conditions on the surface of Mars. - PubMed - NCBI

Abstract
The UV radiation environment on planetary surfaces and within atmospheres is of importance in a wide range of scientific disciplines. Solar UV radiation is a driving force of chemical and organic evolution and serves also as a constraint in biological evolution. In this work we modeled the transmission of present and early solar UV radiation from 200 to 400 nm through the present-day and early (3.5 Gyr ago) Martian atmosphere for a variety of possible cases, including dust loading, observed and modeled O3 concentrations. The UV stress on microorganisms and/or molecules essential for life was estimated by using DNA damaging effects (specifically bacteriophage T7 killing and uracil dimerization) for various irradiation conditions on the present and ancient Martian surface. Our study suggests that the UV irradiance on the early Martian surface 3.5 Gyr ago may have been comparable with that of present-day Earth, and though the current Martian UV environment is still quite severe from a biological viewpoint, we show that substantial protection can still be afforded under dust and ice.

Surface UV would also be a problem.

 

[CarlinAnnArbor]

I think "The Martian" was pretty accurate. You could grow food there under glass (absorbs UV), and under a dome to keep the temps at 70 and not 70 below. I would think you'd need to up the air pressure in the dome, but the 95% CO2 would be great for any plant.

 

[Old Rocks]

I seriously doubt that 95% CO2 would be all that good for the plants. And you would have to wear scuba gear when working in the greenhouse with CO2 at that level.

Carbon dioxide poisoning. - PubMed - NCBI

Carbon dioxide poisoning.
Langford NJ1.
Author information

Abstract
Carbon dioxide is a physiologically important gas, produced by the body as a result of cellular metabolism. It is widely used in the food industry in the carbonation of beverages, in fire extinguishers as an 'inerting' agent and in the chemical industry. Its main mode of action is as an asphyxiant, although it also exerts toxic effects at cellular level. At low concentrations, gaseous carbon dioxide appears to have little toxicological effect. At higher concentrations it leads to an increased respiratory rate, tachycardia, cardiac arrhythmias and impaired consciousness. Concentrations >10% may cause convulsions, coma and death. Solid carbon dioxide may cause burns following direct contact. If it is warmed rapidly, large amounts of carbon dioxide are generated, which can be dangerous, particularly within confined areas. The management of carbon dioxide poisoning requires the immediate removal of the casualty from the toxic environment, the administration of oxygen and appropriate supportive care. In severe cases, assisted ventilation may be required. Dry ice burns are treated similarly to other cryogenic burns, requiring thawing of the tissue and suitable analgesia. Healing may be delayed and surgical intervention may be required in severe cases.

 

[CarlinAnnArbor]

We are talking about an atmosphere for plants, not humans. I don't know if high percentage but extremely low levels if CO2 will hurt a plant. I believe the near vacuum is more dangerous than "too much" 'plant oxygen'. Apparently THIS is what they were testing, and found plants can thrive in the Martian atmosphere.

 

[westwall]

Solar UV irradiation conditions on the surface of Mars. - PubMed - NCBI

Abstract
The UV radiation environment on planetary surfaces and within atmospheres is of importance in a wide range of scientific disciplines. Solar UV radiation is a driving force of chemical and organic evolution and serves also as a constraint in biological evolution. In this work we modeled the transmission of present and early solar UV radiation from 200 to 400 nm through the present-day and early (3.5 Gyr ago) Martian atmosphere for a variety of possible cases, including dust loading, observed and modeled O3 concentrations. The UV stress on microorganisms and/or molecules essential for life was estimated by using DNA damaging effects (specifically bacteriophage T7 killing and uracil dimerization) for various irradiation conditions on the present and ancient Martian surface. Our study suggests that the UV irradiance on the early Martian surface 3.5 Gyr ago may have been comparable with that of present-day Earth, and though the current Martian UV environment is still quite severe from a biological viewpoint, we show that substantial protection can still be afforded under dust and ice.

Surface UV would also be a problem.

Yep. That's part of that "hostile environment" thingy...