Martian habitable zone:

[marsbug]

A thought experiment I've been considering:

I've heard it said on a few occasions that if the ice at mars poles was transported to the bottom of hellas basin by magic tomorrow it would melt during summer to water and make hellas habitable to simple life, which has got me thinking: could it really be that easy?

What would be the minimum changes to make the martian surface, or even a part of it habitable to some kind of life?

And if in a moment of arrogance/ altruism we decided to perform such an experiment what things might we learn?

Edit: I do realise that with it's lack of magnetic field and low gravity any habitable zone set up on mars would ultimately be doomed, so lets say we make it an experiment lasting 100 years. And to give an idea of what I mean by 'habitable', I mean to critters like this, and other extremophiles.

[clint]

Wouldn't it be easier to do that experiment on a much smaller scale, e.g. under a glass dome?
In the meantime, there should be much better uses for the water...

[01101001]

I've heard it said on a few occasions that if the ice at mars poles was transported to the bottom of hellas basin by magic tomorrow it would melt during summer to water and make hellas habitable to simple life, which has got me thinking: could it really be that easy?

Easy? How little time and money and other resources do you estimate it would take to transport the ice at Mars' poles to Hellas Basin?

[marsbug]

Clint: Thats actually where my thoughts were heading. Regardless of how small or large a piece of mars we alter, the question I'm pondering is by how much would it need to be altered? If we were to take a ten meter crater with an impermeable bottom at the lowest point of hellas, and then fill it with water at 5 deg C would that be all that was needed for some tough microbe to take hold there, or would there be other factors than dryness to prevent it?

Or to do it another way, and address 01101001's point: If we took the patch of ice phoenix is sitting on, add some salts to lower its melting point and then heat it to -5 deg c would that be enough to create a habitable spot on mars? I can't think of a fundamental reason why not, can someone else?

Even if the 'oasis' was only kept going for a month it would be a way of testing both how tough and adaptable earth life is, and how far away from being life-compatible mars is.

And it would be a boon for hopes of colonization because you could point to that spot and say;"Look with a little work things can live there!"

[ryanmercer]

Wouldn't the radiation be an issue though, what with Mars not being as protected as Earth.

[clint]

I bet these kinds of experiments will be among the first once we have manned missions to Mars.

They will probably be more controlled and on a much smaller scale (similar to what's done on the ISS)
- with the advantage of being able to test a lot of different variations of environments.

[Drunk Vegan]

Easy? How little time and money and other resources do you estimate it would take to transport the ice at Mars' poles to Hellas Basin?

Seems simple enough to me as we have experience with a similar task here on Earth - namely, moving water by altering landscapes to channel the water elsewhere as an artificial river.

As for how much, take, say, the Panama Canal.

It cost the US $25 million to purchase it in 1921, so call it $25 billion in 2008 dollars.

That is for a canal stretching 48 miles from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

I can't find specific data on how far from the ice cap Hellas Basin is, but for the sake of argument, based on where I see it on the map, let's call it 100 miles.

Now, building the Panama canal was a gargantuan effort nearly beyond human capability at the time. I'll consider it, for the sake of argument, to be roughly equivalent to the effort on Mars, not including the extra costs that would be associated with launching items and people and getting them to Mars.

Once there, however, the Hellas Canal would be comparable to the Panama Canal in scope, just twice as expensive because it would be twice as long.

So call it approximately $50 billion to dig the canal from the cap to the Basin.

Plus a bare minimum of $500 billion in launch costs from Earth for the necessary equipment, people, and supples for the people to be sent to Mars in order to dig the canal.

I'd say $550 billion for a marginally habitable environment is a bargain, actually. Although I would only want it done if it was just * one step * toward eventually terraforming the entire planet.

[Swift]

Or to do it another way, and address 01101001's point: If we took the patch of ice phoenix is sitting on, add some salts to lower its melting point and then heat it to -5 deg c would that be enough to create a habitable spot on mars? I can't think of a fundamental reason why not, can someone else?

Even if the 'oasis' was only kept going for a month it would be a way of testing both how tough and adaptable earth life is, and how far away from being life-compatible mars is.

I don't see why you have to go to Mars to do that experiment. Create an environmental chamber with the temperature, air pressure, atmospheric composition, and water vapor pressure you want and put your microbes in there. You could do that in a 1 liter bell jar with the right equipment. The only serious variable I see is modeling the soil composition of Mars, in case something like trace perchlorate has an impact on your experiment.

I personally don't find that as interesting a question, as compared to the question as to whether life ever developed on its own on Mars.

[Warren Platts]

recreating the temperature and pressure of Mars is not trivial.

[marsbug]

Warren, although experiments where the behavior and growth of living things in simulated mars conditions is studied have been done an accurate recreation of Martian conditions is more troublesome than it first seems.

Swift:
My first point is that a simulation or recreation, however good, is not the surface of mars.
Second mars has a vast range of environments, soil chemistries, pressure and temperature regimes, and to know each one well enough to reproduce accurately would mean a phoenix type probe to each one- so why not just send a probe with the experiment straight to mars? If we're talking survival and growth of micro organisms it need not be a large experiment.
Third, for a simulation to have real usefulness, at some point you have to go and test it against reality

I agree that finding that bacteria could live there if the pressure was 15 millibar higher is not a substitute for finding that mars had its own life. However the discovery of past martian life would tell us about life's (and hence our) origins.
Studying lifes reaction to Martian conditions would teach us about life and its limits as it is today, and give us some insight into what we could do with mars in the future. It could also have a direct contribution to the search for signs of past Martian life, as it would give us some firm limits on how harsh the surface could have gotten and still supported life.

Drunk vegan:Flooding hellas basin, it's a hell of a mental picture! I think our first steps in that direction would be much smaller, maybe even ultra fine test tube sized. I'd like to see the sea of Hellas though.

Ryan Mercer: yes it would! I'd be interested to see what life could adapt to that and how, assuming the other conditions were right to support life.

I think an experiment of this kind would be a logical extension of the kind of thinking behind the planetary societies LIFE experiment to see if microbes can survive interplanetary travel .And if if I sound like I'm trying to sell this idea; I am! I have thought it worth at least looking at for a while now. I will admit this idea partly grew out of my own impatience with the search for signs of past Martian life, but I think it has merit in its own right.

[Drunk Vegan]

Drunk vegan:Flooding hellas basin, it's a hell of a mental picture! I think our first steps in that direction would be much smaller, maybe even ultra fine test tube sized. I'd like to see the sea of Hellas though.

I just want to do it so that we can finally have our canals on Mars.

Human made, but still.

[marsbug]

Fair enough, there's nothing wrong with wanting something just because it would be amazing!

There are already some people thinking about things that could grow on lunar soil, and sooner or later they'll have to send some probe or person there to see if their simulations pan out. I wonder if living on the moon will change the little critters? And would that be an interesting thing or a disaster?

I like the idea of doing this on mars because there's a chance that in the right spot the 'oasis' could be open to the sky, and that sends a shiver of wonder down my spine!

[Vultur]

I wouldn't be surprised if some terrestrial extremophiles could live on Mars as it is now. The endolithic bacteria which feed off chemicals in deep-crust rocks, for example: is there something in Mars' crust which would prevent them from surviving if injected into it? Surely there's some water deep in Mars rocks...

Is there water in lunar crust? If so, could you send a hard-impact probe that dug a deep hole into the moon carrying endoliths, to set up a biosphere?

[MaDeR]

I wouldn't be surprised if some terrestrial extremophiles could live on Mars as it is now.

If this is possible, then life is on Mars... here and now.

I estimate that some form of life exists on (well, deep under surface of) Mars with probability approaching 100%. Why?

* Mars was habitable on surface for half, or even one and half bilion years. Plenty of time for abiogenesis or contracing life from Earth.
* Once present and not immidiately wiped, life is almost impossible to completely kill off.

[marsbug]

I think it's likely to, but I also think we'll have to wait avery long time for confirmation of that. I like the idea of a subsurface biosphere on the moon- if there is water in the moons crust at the same depths as constant liveable temperatures it could be self sustaining, something that isn't usually a question when talking about getting things to live on the moon.