Human beings will rely on friends they cannot see when they enter mars. That friend is none other than the non descript microbe.
Amanned mission to Mars will require core elements of survival such as shelter, air we can breathe, clothing, food, medicines, energy, waste disposal and man friday for all these endeavours could be microbes.
Microbes could reportedly prove to be a valuable form of supplies, and human astronauts don't have to use up their supplies from earth. Popular Science reports that certain bacteria could capitalise on Mars's few resources and start supporing simple ecosystems.
These include helping plants grow, thereby creating oxygen to breathe and breaking down waste. Microbes can also facilitate creation of minerals and help in mining activities.
According to AOL, Scientists actively search for microbes in earth's most extreme climatic areas to comprehend how life survives in mars and other planets.
"We have been using biology as technology for literally thousands of years, to make our clothing, to make our houses," says Lynn Rothschild, an astrobiologist and synthetic biologist at the NASA Ames Research Center in California. "To think that we're going to do this some other way on Mars is sort of crazy."she echoes.
The craziness began when Rothschild and her colleagues found a desert dwelling bacteria, hyper resistant to radiation unlike any other bacteria they have seen. This could help scientists to figure out ways to engineer bacteria to be resistant to martian radiation,popular science reports.
In fact, microbes don't even need people alive, some friends they are. A report by a magazine suggest that microbes could travel on human astronaut corpses and spark life in different planets.
Additionally, these microbes could kill indigenous alien microbes in Mars and hence, cause confusion among later astronauts on which bacteria is the real alien.
Even if carrying microbes to Mars pointedly to sustain life is not on the policy agenda of governments just yet, there are a few microbes within human beings who travel all the way, whether they like it or not.
"Regardless, when astronauts reach Mars, they will be bringing microbes along for the ride. "We all have a human microbiome; if you send humans you can't sterilize them first," says Margaret Race, a senior scientist at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, reported Popular science.
