[extropy-chat] Re: MARS: Because it is hard

[David Lubkin]

At least in The Case for Mars, Zubrin doesn't address the need for a 
sustainable ecology in Mars-based agriculture. Has anyone considered this 
in any detail?

How long before we can create organisms (plants, bacteria, insects) 
suitable for seeding on Mars, whose metabolism produces a useful benefit in 
extracting a resource or in terraforming?

Assuming we had such organisms today, what would be the best way to deploy 
them? How expensive would it be for the craft to deploy a large number of 
small entry vehicles, spread across the planet? How rapidly can an organism 
cover Mars, given an effectively unlimited food supply? (I'm asking more 
about how fast each moves, rather than how fast it reproduces.)

Of course either effort would dramatically alter whatever modest biosphere 
may exist there now.


-- David Lubkin.