According to new research, humans may need amazing things to survive on Mars.
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When will humans land on Mars? A recent report suggested 2038 as the most likely launch year for a manned mission to Mars, mainly because it is when Earth and Mars are closest in the late 2030s, with 2048 ranked as the date of a “late release”.
Human settlement on the red planet could come much later, but if it does, there will be great challenges to overcome. Where will future Martians live? What will they eat? Scientists are beginning to investigate these two questions, and some of the first answers are a bit strange.
Two recent research papers have highlighted the potential importance of human waste and kombucha in building and maintaining a colony on the red planet.
What would humans need to survive and thrive on Mars?
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Stinky “space bricks” on Mars
The first smell of a plan to build settlements on Mars comes from a study published in the journal PLOS One which reveals that bacteria and urea from the astronauts’ urine could be used to make “space bricks”.
Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), in collaboration with the Space Research Organization of India (ISRO), believe that the recipe will require Martian soil, guar gum, a bacterium called Sporosarcina pasteurii, urea and nickel chloride (NiCl2). The resulting space slurry could be poured into molds in any form with bacteria converting urea into calcium carbonate crystals. The result would be a kind of cement to hold the soil particles and bricks together.
“Bacteria seep deep into pore spaces, using their own proteins to bind particles together, reducing porosity and resulting in stronger bricks,” said Aloke Kumar, an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at IISc. , one of the senior authors of the paper.
Adding nickel chloride is key because without it iron-rich Martian soil is toxic to bacteria.
The following is a project to test whether these “space bricks” will withstand the effects of the thin atmosphere and low gravity of Mars, using a camera that reproduces in the laboratory the atmospheric conditions found on Mars.
Kombucha, a fermented tea drink, could play a key role in the settlement of Mars.
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He has mushrooms on Mars
A second breakthrough to sustain human life on Mars comes from the kombucha, whose survival under Mars-like conditions was studied by a team of scientists in Germany and Brazil as part of the Mars Biology and Experiment (BIOMEX) project.
Sometimes called tea fungus or mushroom tea, kombucha is produced by fermenting sweetened tea using kombucha cultures, a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast.
The latest article, published this month in Frontiers in Microbiology, reveals that the popular process of fermenting black or green tea allows a bacterial cellulose-producing species to survive.
This is important because cellulose, which is probably responsible for the survival of bacteria in extraterrestrial conditions, could be used on Mars as a preservative, food additive, and fiber supplement in extraterrestrial settlements.
Cellulose-based membranes or films could also be useful in producing various consumer goods.
Kombucha cultures outside the International Space Station (ISS) simulating a Mars-like environment … [+] which was used for the experiments.
European Space Agency (ESA)
“We found that the simulated Martian environment drastically altered the microbial ecology of kombucha crops,” said Bertram Brenig, head of the Institute of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Göttingen. “However, we were surprised to find that cellulose-producing bacteria of the genus Komagataeibacter survived.”
The same team previously sent kombucha cultures to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2014.
It is useful information for future Mars settlers, but it also suggests that bacterial cellulose could be a biomarker of extraterrestrial life.
If humans ever want to settle on Mars, a lot of science has to be done beforehand. “I’m so excited that many researchers around the world are thinking of colonizing other planets,” Kumar told the “Space Bricks” team. “It may not happen quickly, but people are actively working on it.”
I wish you clear skies and open eyes.