Engineering Eden: Terraforming a Second Earth

Catalyst Volume 10

Today’s world is faced with thousands of complex problems that seem to be insurmountable. One of the most pressing is the issue of the environment and how our over-worked planet can sustain such an ever-growing society. Our major source of energy is finite and rapidly depleting. Carbon dioxide emissions have passed the “irreversibility” threshold. Our oceans and atmosphere are polluted, and scientists predict a grim future for Mother Earth if humans do not change our wasteful ways. A future similar to the scenes of “Interstellar” or “Wall-E” is becoming increasing less fictitious. While most of the science world is turning to alternative fuels and public activism as vehicles for change, some radical experts in climate change and astronomy suggest relocation to a different planet: Mars. The Mars rover, Curiosity, presents evidence that Mars has the building blocks of a potential human colony, such as the presence of heavy metals and nutrients nestled in its iconic red surface. This planet, similar in location, temperature, and size to Earth, seems to have the groundwork to be our next home. Now is when we ponder: perhaps our Earth was not meant to sustain human life for eternity. Perhaps we are living at the tail end of our time on Earth.

Colonizing Mars would be a project beyond any in human history, and the rate-limiting step of this process would be developing an atmosphere that could sustain human, animal, and plant life. The future of mankind on Mars is contingent on developing a breathable atmosphere, so humans and animals could thrive without the assistance of oxygen tanks, and vegetation could grow without the assistance of a greenhouse. The Martian atmosphere has little oxygen, being almost 95.7 percent carbon dioxide. It is also one percent of the density of Earth’s atmosphere, so it provides no protection from the Sun’s radiation. Our atmosphere, armed with a thick layer of ozone, absorbs or deflects the majority of radiation before it hits our surface. Even if a human could breathe on the surface of Mars, he or she would die from radiation poisoning or cancer. Fascinating ways to address this have been discussed, one being mass hydrogen bombing across the entire surface of the planet, creating an atmosphere of dust and debris thick enough to block ultraviolet radiation. This feat can also be accomplished by physically harnessing nearby asteroids and catapulting them into the surface. The final popular idea is the use of mega-mirrors to capture the energy of the sun to warm up the surface to release greenhouse gases from deep within the soil.¹

However, bioengineers have suggested another way of colonizing Mars--a way that does not require factories or asteroids or even human action for that matter. Instead, we would use genetically modified plants and algae to build the Martian atmosphere. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is pursuing research in developing these completely new life forms.² These life forms would not need oxygen or water to survive, but instead would synthesize a new atmosphere given the materials already on Mars. The bioengineering lab at DARPA has developed a software called DTA GView which has been called a “Google Maps of Genomes.” It acts as a library of genes, and DARPA has identified genes that could be inserted into extremophile organisms. A bacteria called Chroococcidiopsis is resistant to wide temperature changes and hypersalinity, two conditions found on Mars.³ Carnobacterium spp has proven to thrive under low pressure and in the absence of oxygen. These two organisms could potentially be genetically engineered to live on Mars and add vital life-sustaining molecules to the atmosphere.

Other scientific developments must occur before these organisms are ready to pioneer the human future on Mars. Curiosity must send Earth more data regarding what materials are present in Mars’ soil, and we must study how to choose, build, and transport the ideal candidate to Mars. Plus, many argue that our scientific research should be focused on healing our current home instead of building a new one. If we are willing to invest the immense scientific capital required to terraform another planet, we would likely also be able to mediate the problem of Earthly pollution. However, in such a challenging time, we must venture to new frontiers, and the bioengineers at DARPA have given us an alternative method to go where no man or woman has ever gone before.

References

1. “The ethics of terraforming Mars: a review” iGem Valencia Team, 2010, 1-12 (Accessed November 2, 2016)
2. Terraforming Mars With Microbeshttp://schaechter.asmblog.org/schaechter/2013/06/terraforming-mars-with-microbes.html (Accessed November 4, 2016)
3. We are Engineering the Organisms that will terraform Mars.http://motherboard.vice.com/read/darpa-we-are-engineering-the-organisms-that-will-terraform-mars (Accessed November 4, 2016)

Who Says Time Travel Isn't Possible?

Catalyst Volume 10

There are several very real challenges that must be overcome when attempting to travel to another star, let alone another galaxy. However, with today’s technology and understanding of physics, we can envision potential ways to make interstellar travel, and even time travel, a reality, giving rise to the question of why other potential civilizations have not invented and made use of it yet. This is especially suspicious because considering the immensity of the universe, there are bound to be other intelligent civilizations, begging the famous question of the Fermi Paradox, “So where is everybody?” It’s answer would enable us to evolve into an interstellar or intergalactic species, while failing to do so could spell our demise.

Einstein’s theory of special relativity is where the cosmic speed limit (the speed of light) was first introduced. His theory also gives rise to the concept of time dilation, which states that time runs slower for those traveling extremely fast than it does for those on Earth, and that distances shrink when travelling at high speeds.¹ So, when a spaceship is travelling close to the speed of light, time measured aboard runs slower than it would on clocks at rest. This can play an important role in interstellar travel, because it can allow travelers moving close to the cosmic speed limit to age slower than those on Earth. For example, if a spaceship left Earth in the year 2100 and made a roundtrip to the star Vega at 90% the speed of light, it would return in Earth year 2156, but only 24 years would have passed for the crew of the ship.² Because of time dilation, journeys could be made to very distant places, and the crew would age very little. Due to this amazing effect, one could theoretically travel to the black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, 28,000 light years away, and only age 21 years, if travelling fast enough.² At a high enough percentage of the speed of light, you would be able to reach Andromeda (2.5 million light years away), and return to Earth only 60 years older while 5 million years have passed on Earth.² Clearly, time dilation is a real form of time travel to the future, assuming relativistic speeds are achievable. Therefore, it follows that the main obstacle for this method is reaching a percentage of the speed of light where time dilation becomes significant, requiring enormous amounts of energy.

Though obtaining the energy required for interstellar travel may seem like a far off goal, it will definitely be possible to travel great distances at great speeds in the near future with the science and technology that we have today. The first of these technologies are rockets that use nuclear energy as power. According to Albert Einstein’s equation, E=mc², any small amount of mass can release a very large amount of energy. In fact, through the use of nuclear fission, only 0.6 grams of Uranium (less than the weight of an M&M) was sufficient to level Hiroshima during World War II.³ Nuclear fission makes use of the lost mass when an atomic nucleus splits into two. Nuclear fusion, on the other hand, involves two atomic nuclei fusing into one, releasing ten times the energy of fission. This process is the source of energy for the sun, occurring at its core. Nuclear fusion, if controlled, is a viable source of energy in the future. Just using the hydrogen present in the water coming out of one faucet could provide enough energy for the United States’ current needs, a staggering 2,850,000,000,000 joules/second.²

In order to conduct nuclear fusion, an environment similar to the center of the sun must be created, with the same temperatures and pressures. Gas must be converted into an highly ionized state known as plasma. Recently, MIT was able to use their Alcator C-Mod tokamak reactor’s extreme magnetic fields to create highest plasma pressures ever recorded⁴ In addition, a 7-story reactor in southern France, 800 times larger than MIT’s reactor, is set to be completed in 2025 and will have magnets that are each as heavy as a Boeing 747.⁵ Nuclear fusion could one day provide limitless energy for a spacecraft, accelerating it to relativistic speeds. Enormous scoops could be attached to the spacecraft to collect interstellar hydrogen gas throughout the journey, allowing travel to the distant corners of the galaxy.

Another technological development to facilitate interstellar travel is the EM drive, which is purported to be an electromagnetic thruster. This form of propulsion is highly controversial because it seemingly violates Newton’s 3rd law and thus the Law of Conservation of Momentum, which together say that for something to move in one direction, an equal and opposite force must be exerted in the opposite direction. The EM drive is thought to use electromagnetic waves as fuel and create thrust through microwaves within the engine cavity that push on the inside and cause the thruster to accelerate in the opposite direction.⁶ Simply put, the EM drive is able to go in one direction without a propellant or an opposite force pushing it. It has been tested multiple times, most notably by NASA’s Eagleworks Lab. The EM drive has repeatedly been measured to produce a small amount of thrust, making it difficult for scientists to dismiss the possibility that it works.⁷ The thrust seemingly cannot be explained by our current understanding of physics, but the Eagleworks Lab has nevertheless submitted its results to be published soon in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ Journal of Propulsion and Power. This Eagleworks experiment, if shown to be reproducible, would open up opportunities for researchers around the world to conduct further experimentation. In August, plans were announced to test the EM drive in space, which would be the most robust test of its efficacy to date. The EM drive could one day provide an essentially limitless supply of thrust on a spacecraft without the need for propellant, allowing it to constantly accelerate until it reached relativistic speeds.

These are only two examples of technologies that could make interstellar travel possible. In the next few decades, we can look forward to more innovative research that will push the boundaries of science and redefine interplanetary, interstellar, and intergalactic travel. If relativistic speeds are achieved, humans could travel thousands, if not millions of years into the future by aging much slower than the rate at which time would actually pass on Earth. So who says we can’t time travel? Certainly not science!

References

1. Bennet, J. The Cosmic Perspective; Pearson: Boston, 2014.
2. Bennett, J. Life In the Universe; Pearson: San Francisco, 2012.
3. Glasstone, S. Dolan, P. The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, 3rd; United States Department of Defense and United States Department of Energy: 1977.
4. Plasma Science and Fusion Center. https://www.psfc.mit.edu/research/magnetic-fusion-energy (accessed Nov. 11, 2016).
5. ITER. https://www.iter.org/mach (accessed Nov. 05, 2016).
6. Shawyer, R. New Scientist [Online] 2006, https://www.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/av/shawyertheory.pdf (accessed Nov. 10, 2016).
7. Wang, B. NASA Emdrive experiments have force measurements while the device is in a hard vacuum. NextBigFuture, Feb. 07, 2015. http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2015/02/more-emdrive-experiment-information.html (accessed Nov 7, 2016).