In the search for other habitable planets for humanity to spread out from Earth, science fiction came up with terraforming. The ability to transform a dead planet into a habitable one. An example is the Genesis Device in Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan.
The Genesis Device utilized terraforming that turned previously uninhabitable planets into Class M worlds that replicated Earth-like conditions. It was used to great effect to bring Spock back to life after he sacrificed himself to save the Enterprise. But, like so many things invented by man for good, it could be used for evil in the wrong hands. In the film, Khan steals the device, realising it could be used to devastate a planet, because the process of terraforming wipes out any pre-existing life. The device proved unstable and the terraformed planet eventually exploded.
All this remained in the realm of fiction until now. A recent study published by Chinese scientists reports on a desert moss which is so resilient that it could be used to terraform Mars. An article on Space.com reported:
Due to its extraordinary resilience, Syntrichia caninervis (S. caninervis), a moss found in extreme desert environments from Tibet to Antarctica, has been touted a “pioneer plant” for establishing a livable environment on Mars. Basically, scientists believe this plant could enrich the planet’s rocky surface to enable the growth of other plants.
A few studies have explored alternative possibilities of these terraforming seeds, such as algae and lichens. “However, plants such as mosses offer key benefits for terraforming, including stress tolerance, a high capacity for photoautotrophic growth, and the potential to produce substantial amounts of biomass under challenging conditions,” the new study’s team wrote in the paper.
The scientists subjected whole S. caninervis plants to conditions typically found on Mars: high doses of gamma radiation, low oxygen, extreme cold and drought. They report that the plants could withstand combinations of these conditions, even losing over 98% of their water content and still bouncing back within seconds —”drying without dying” is the term that was used. Perhaps even more astounding is the plant’s ability to recover and grow new branches after being stored in a freezer at −80 degrees Celsius (-112 degrees Fahrenheit) for five years or in liquid nitrogen (-195.8 degrees C; -320.44 degrees F) for one month.
Do humans belong on Mars?
In all the excitement of the possibility of terraforming becoming a reality, we should also consider seriously whether we should.
Erica Nesvold
In her essay titled The Thorny Ethics of Planetary Engineering, for instance, astrophysicist and NASA researcher Erika Nesvold outlines the dilemma quite clearly: “The goal of terraforming is to intentionally create an entire ecosystem on a global scale, which would more than likely destroy any existing ecosystem,” she wrote. “Terraforming technology might even become feasible before we definitively determine whether extraterrestrial life exists on the planet or moon that we hope to transform.
“But suppose we do discover evidence of existing microbial life on a planet like Mars,” she continued. “Should this disqualify Mars as a target for terraforming? Should we avoid settling on Mars at all?”
The study was published on July 1 in the journal The Innovation.
Ann Marie Thomas is the author of five medieval history books, a surprisingly cheerful poetry collection about her 2010 stroke, and the science fiction series Flight of the Kestrel, Intruders, Alien Secrets, Crisis of Conscience and Planet Downfall are out now. Follow her at http://eepurl.com/bbOsyz