A new scientific theory has suggested colonising Mars by landing a containment of microorganisms on the planet.
The idea would be to infect Mars with life in the same way as life on Earth started with single-cell organisms. It would also give scientists a chance to study how the microbes exist before sending up costly rockets packed with human settlers.
Jose Lopez, a professor at Nova Southeastern University, and one of the authors of the paper suggesting the approach said that life cannot exist on the red planet without microbes like bacteria and funghi.
‘Life as we know it cannot exist without beneficial microorganisms,’ he said in a statement accompanying the paper, which was published last month in the in the journal FEMS Microbiological Ecology.
‘To survive on a barren (and as far as all voyages to date tell us) sterile planets, we will have to take beneficial microbes with us.’
To date, all space exploration has focused on sterilising any off-world equipment so as not to contaminate alien planets we are trying to study.
This idea throws that notion (which Nasa and other space agencies have adhered to for decades) out the window.
But Lopez and his colleagues say the introduction of germs and bacteria are inevitable.
‘Microbial introduction should not be considered accidental but inevitable,’ the paper explains.
‘We hypothesise the near impossibility of exploring new planets without carrying and/or delivering any microbial travellers.’
Of course, the scientists aren’t suggesting we just load up a rocket full of bacteria and shoot it at Mars. There’s no telling how it will cope on the freezing, radiation-blasted planet. The authors say that space agencies need to start work now on developing the right kind of organisms to send over.
‘This will take time to prepare, discern,’ said Lopez.
‘We are not advocating a rush to inoculate, but only after rigorous, systematic research on Earth.’
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