Terraforming via rapidly growing organisms, is it a good idea?
Terraforming and maintaining a biosphere suitable for humans is tough, but no worries, Protogon is here! Collaborating with Providence, our scientists have created Hygiea, a series of rapidly growing organisms used to turn the slightly not so dead husk into a Earth-like environment.
Hygiea itself is a set of rapidly growing symbiotic organisms who "work" together (basically growing) and seed a planet with life (plants mainly) that in turn produce a habitable environment.
Would something like Hygiea ever work? In my mind it would basically speed up evolution on the planet, moon, or biosphere in question. To work, however, a fragile atmosphere and basic building blocks for life must be present already. However it turns centuries of work terraforming into mere years.
This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/139012. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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The creation of genetically engineered microorganisms for industrial and high-tech applications such as terraforming is certainly within the realm of possibility. However, there are several hurdles that they will face.
First problem: The target planet needs to have an initial environment upon which at the very least the most extreme microorganisms of Earth are able to survive. Mars for instance, does not meet these criteria, so you're need to do some physical modifications prior to setting loose your terraformers. If the planet was a reasonable Earth analogue to begin with (in that is had suitable insolation and surface water) you can skip this step.
Second problem: Your terraformers are going to grow so rapidly as to outpace the supply of nutrients. This can be mitigated somewhat by making the organism capable of nitrogen fixing, and can be strongly mitigated if you are willing to undertake nutrient seeding throughout the process.
Third problem: Your target planet will likely lack an ozone layer at the point you introduce your terraformers, so they will either need to be able to resist UV irradiation, or be restricted to marine environments.
Fourth problem: The rapid growth of your terraformers will cause the environment to shift from an anaerobic one to an aerobic one reasonably quickly. Their metabolisms need to be able to function in both of these regimes.
While there are probably many more issues that I've not thought of, solving these four will be a big step on the way to designing your terraformation microbes. My suggestion would be to use Rhodopseudomonas palustris as the basis of your microbe as it is able to shift between four different modes of metabolism based on the conditions it finds itself in, maybe with a bit of Deinococcus radiodurans thrown in for radiation resistance.
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