the inhabitants to live (and thrive) “off the land” and their ability to adapt to the new con-
ditions in which they find themselves. To enable this, technologies must be developed
that make solar system exploration a great deal more dependable, economical, and sus-
tainable. The potential for achieving all three—using biology to survive, living (and thriv-
ing) off the land, and making the economics more favorable—can be attained by utiliz-
ing recent advances in, and combining the potentials of, the fields of genomics,
proteomics, nanoscience, biosensor technology, robotics, and intelligent machines.
9.8 Imagine
The year is 2057. A ship is hurtling through space 6 weeks from Mars, and its crew look-
ing forward with some anxiety to their nearly 2-year-long stay on the Red Planet. By this
time, travel between the third and fourth planet from the Sun takes place, but it is neither
routine nor does it meet any kind of normal schedule. The spacefarers’ concern is for the
things Earth-dwellers take for granted—fresh food, vitamins, antibiotics, pain killers,
paper, construction materials, even flavorings and soaps. What do they do?
They send out signals in the form of a sophisticated code toward their destination.
Why? Because within specialized chambers on Mars are specialized plants adapted to the
conditions found on the Red Planet. One unique adaptation is that they are programmed
to receive and respond to these remotely generated signals. Perhaps the instruction will
be “Make vitamins” (by this time, the pathways for B12 and D have been engineered into
plants, making all 13 essential vitamins available botanically); or “Make acetyl salicylic
acid” (aspirin and other naturally occurring secondary products are plant-derived); or
“Make penicillin” (the biochemical pathway for this antibiotic and others has been engi-
neered into plants by now); or “Make plastic” (the first plants were engineered more than
60 years earlier to produce a biodegradable thermoplastic); or perhaps “Enter fruit devel-
opment stage” (the crew is just plain hungry for something fresh).
Regardless, the crew can rest assured that their needs will be met and can breathe a
sigh of relief, saying “Thank goodness for programmable plants!”
9.9 Literature cited
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Clark B. 1989. Survival and prosperity using regolith resources on Mars. J. Brit. Interplanetary
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Corey K, Barta DJ and Wheeler RM. 2002. Toward Martian agriculture: responses of plants to hy-
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Cosofret V, Erdosy M, Johnson T and Buck R. 1995. Microfabricated sensor arrays sensitive to
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