Hey, maybe we should begin engineering these bacteria for Mars? Martian 'soil' has a lot of metal and salt in it. Maybe someone can simulate Mars dirt and experiment with different microbes in it to see how to best make real soil. This article says that they are also adept at cleaning groundwater, which is what any base not locate at the poles would use. Nice timing.

These are bacteria that live on the edge of extremes where no other form of life exist. To find one that will tolerate the conditions on Mars maybe tough to find here on earth in that temperature, pressure and salty soil conditions. Trying to simulate the soil with out a more detailed analysis by other more advance rovers or without a sample return will most likely be very difficult for finding the right microbes to bring to Mars to aid in the teraforming process.

Well engerineering them for a role in terraforming is a bit beyond our current abilities. However, we could study these microbes in more depth and experiment to find conditions in which they multiple the fastest. Then we could use them perhaps under a greenhouse dome to make small patches of dirt more fertile. As it stands now, anything we try to grow in martian dirt would die quickly for lack of organic material to feed from.

Plants need organic material but also I beleive Nitrogen in the soil for root growth or is this just for grass and trees.

I picture a Mars journey as if we packed up our winobago with our car in tow behind it. The winobago is much like the crew cabin, rocket, with the car as the lander. If you can only fuel up once you can only go as far as the fuel last making it important to have re-fueling stations along the way.
If any thing should break along a journey to Mars you must be able to repair it. So carrying some spare parts for the critical pieces is a necessity but there is only so much room inside the winobago.
There is also a need for redundant engines, steering and energy resources on such a long trip as well. Inaddition to all the other needs.

WOW! Ok I've read it all. I hope that Gilbert Levin can forgive all of us skeptics. He's right, his experiment did discover life on Mars way back in 1976. In a nutshell, his experiment used an organic 'soup' that microbes find tasty. The soil samples gave off gas consistant with microbes in the soil 'eating' the soup. NASA's ONLY reason for doubting his evidence is that an instrument called the mass spectrometer-gas chromatograph (GCMS) failed to detect organic material in the dirt. The instrument was set to dicover earthly amounts of microoganisms in the dirt. It was incapable of detecting anything lower so it gave a negative reading, yes its that simple. The GCMS could not have detected life even if 'millions of cells per gram were in the martian soil'. So based on 3 experiments, 2 yeilding 'yes there is life' answers, and 1 with fuzzy glasses saying 'can't see nothin', NASA decided the answer is no. How so very like them, this doesn't suprise me at all.
On a side note, this link also has an image of a magnetic device on the Viking landers accumulating 4mm's of particles. Seems like the microbes in this article might already be on Mars. Thanks again Prozac for the link!!

http://www.biospherics.com/Mars/PosterSlidesonMarsforWeb_files/frame.htm

Harold, about spare parts and a need for back up systems, this is why I've been saying that the international community needs to standardize all parts going into Mars missions so that rovers, landers, etc can be used for their parts when we do send people.
And about Nitrogen being needed for higher lifeforms, you are very correct. the key word being 'higher'. Many microbes can do just fine in dirt totally devoid of what it takes to grow a blade of grass. When, not if, but when we do bring life to Mars it would be wise to follow the only successful terraforming of a world we know of, our own. At one point there wasn't a single gram of organic material on the whole planet. Microbes paved the way for higher plant lifeforms and eventually us.
I'm hoping someone out there is making soil from dirt totally devoid of organic material.

Step One: Mix martian dirt with microbe batch labeled C-7. Add 2 cups water.

Step Two: Defrost earthworms, add to dirt, stir gently for 5 minutes.

Step Three: Plant grass, mow, weed, drink lemonade and watch football.

Then in about 30 years start the trip to Mars. Please no re-runs on the tele and plenty of brew.

On the idea of refueling stations placing these at different distances and having them circle the sun at the proper ratio such that they would always be in perfect alignment for a Moon or Earth to Mars trip so that we could go and be done in a lot faster time since by refuleing it would allow for reactivating the large thrust needed to get us there faster from the main engines. Probably shuttle tanks would fit the bill.

I believe Robert Zubrin first put forth the idea that a mission to Mars should be two-part. Before we launch humans to Mars, he proposes that we send and unmanned vehicle to Mars with an empty fuel tank. The craft then goes about collecting water to make rocket fuel for a return flight. Humans then arrive on Mars knowing that they have the feul they need to get home. Of coarse this saves a LOT of money since you don't have to carry your return fuel with you to Mars. This also avoids risky docking procedures. Once the mission on the surface is complete, the crew takes off leaving the automated station to make fuel for the next mission.

I was thinking mainly of the trip to Mars in how to make it take less time since radiation exposure is a problem. I had forgot about the return trip fuel requirements but you are correct with the processing plant if enough water can be found, also how about a methane fueled rocket maybe not as good as plain old hydrogen but I think it is feasable as an alternative fuel.

Another thought for the refueling station also is that it could be a resupply station for food stocks and for other items as well for both directions of travel making the vehicle smaller. We would probably have a good idea of the water and food stocks based from the ISS crew size needs for the estimated time span to reach Mars.

From the Constellation site:

There's a problem with "floating gas stations". The need to change velocity to dock with the gas station and then change velocity again to head to Mars, may make a filling station a moot point.

Posted by: Sammy Davis at April 13, 2004 11:41 AM

But the benifit would be fresh supplies and a smaller main rocket hopefully making the lander payload larger for Mars. Sending them at staggered velocities to allow for differing docking times in transit may be enough to compensate for docking problem of speed matching. If the station still has some fuel left it could fire it's engines for docking also to speed up to the velocity of the crews rocket rather than having them slow down.

Posted by: Harold LaValley at April 13, 2004 12:06 PM

Zach, you are welcome. Thanks for explaining the stuff on my link ;-)
It is so hard to find scientific proof, but this was as good as it gets.

Maybe now you understand why I am so cautious about sample return missions.