Surviving Life on Mars

Even so, DR may yet travel to Mars as a Pharmacist's Mate First Class.

"Because of genetic engineering, you might do a lot with this bug to enhance the survivability of man in extraterrestrial environments," Richmond said. Altering the human genome to take on survival characteristics like DR is far too complex a task at the moment. But D. radiodurans could be altered to serve man.

"The interesting things about the drugs we use is that about two-thirds are natural products or derived from natural products," Richmond said. "Anything that is a natural product ultimately comes down to a gene and can be genetically managed, in theory."

Living off the land - after you reshape it

Richmond, Sridhar, and Daly suggest that DR can be genetically manipulated to produce various drugs that humans might need while exploring Mars, then put on ice during the mission. If someone became ill, treatment would start with drugs in from a small supply kept on hand, while the appropriate bugs were awakened to produce a regular supply. With such an approach, the issues of shelf life for drugs could also be circumvented. This would also reduce the weight that a spaceship would have to haul to Mars and back.

Engineered versions of RD could help humans to set up camps or homesteads on Mars through recycling waste - producing clean water and oxygen - and perhaps even food supplements. "Its own food stock might even be Mars," Richmond suggested, giving new meaning to "living off the land." Again, the bug's genetic design might help ensure a renewable grocery store for explorers.

The ultimate step would be the popular notion of terraforming, reshaping the environment of Mars to make it more hospitable to humans. Terraforming was first performed by ancient lifeforms that converted Earth's environment from a carbon dioxide atmosphere and calcium-rich seas to the more hospitable world we have today. Because these early lifeforms spoiled their home, they now survive in what we consider to be extreme environments.

Mars, too, is considered to be an extreme environment. But with a little help from D. radiodurans, it may be made more accessible and, eventually, attractive. After all, as the old saying goes, "The difficult we do now. The impossible takes a little longer."