Cyanobacteria (algae) would use carbon dioxide from Mars’ atmosphere and create sugars when exposed to sunlight, while an engineered E. coli bacterium would turn those sugars into propellant.
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology found out that carbon dioxide, sunlight, and frozen water – all resources that are native to the Red Planet – could be used in conjunction with two kinds ofCyanobacteria would use carbon dioxide from Mars’and create sugars when exposed to sunlight, while an engineered E. coli bacterium would turn those sugars into propellant.
The rockets planned for leaving Mars are designed to use methane and liquid oxygen, neither of which are native to the red planet. These would therefore have to be transported to Mars at great expense and resource. It is estimated that carrying 30 tons of methane and liquid oxygen would cost around $8 billion.
The first steps in this process would be taking plastic to Mars that could be assembled into photobioreactors about the size of four football pitches. The cyanobacteria would grow via photosynthesis, and the enzymes in a separate reactor would break them down into sugar to feed the E. coli. “You need a lot less energy for lift-off on Mars, which gave us the flexibility to consider different chemicals that aren’t designed for rocket launch on Earth,” said researcher Pamela Peralta-Yahya. “We started to consider ways to take advantage of the planet’s lower gravity and lack of oxygen to create solutions that aren’t relevant for Earth launches.
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