Designer Plants for Mars.
Take the cold tolerance of bacteria that thrive in arctic ice, add the ultraviolet resistance of tomato plants growing high in the Andes mountains, and combine with an ordinary plant. What do you get? A tough plant "pioneer" that can grow in Martian soil. <b>NOTE: French, German, Italian, and Spanish translations follow...</b>
Comments:
Since we know NOTHING about the ecology of Mars, or whether life does or ever existed on the planet, I believe this hair brained idea is an extreme waste of money. NASA should limit its research to finding and identifying extraterrestrial life and leave the genetic modification of plants with bacteria for "genesis" of another world to the sci-fi enthusiasts. We need to first understand and realize the complexity of our earth's ecology long before we even think of introducing life on Mars. NASA's NAIC would obtain more useful science by perhaps studying the 'in situ' biology of extremophiles and its genetic relationship to other life on this planet instead of genetic engineering.
<blockquote class="blockquote"><div class="italic"><i>Jef Spalding said:</i>We need to first understand and realize the complexity of our earth's ecology long before we even think of introducing life on Mars.</div></blockquote> These two scientific subjects are not mutually exclusive. In fact there is much potential for unexpected synergies for these two fields to realize from each other.<br><br>As a practical matter, this would appear to be the first embryonic steps towards developing practical terra-forming technologies. Such development is highly practical from a standpoint of simple survival: planets are periodically hit with cataclysmic asteroid collisions, and in earth's case, the occasional super-volcano that brings global devastation and additional mass extinctions. If a species is established on two worlds rather than one, the probability of long-term survival is increased by many orders of magnitude.
<img class='' src='http://new.astromart.com/astromart/javascripts/sceditor/emoticons/shocked.png' alt='shocked' title='shocked'/> I smell KUDZU or Snakehead or African clawe frogs...
And I was so hoping that NASA was working overtime figuring out how to keep chunks of ice and insulation from hitting the shuttle.
