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Nasa launches $1M competition to turn Mars CO2 into sugar
- umvi 8y agoI was going to suggest we should hold competitions for turning Earth's CO2 in sugar as well, but then I remembered you can just plant seeds.
- pkhagah 8y agoAnd wait millions of years for that plants to turn in to coal and oil, drill oil for $$$
- flyingfences 8y agoI'm not so sure the first Mars colonists will wait that long. If humanity's Terran history is any indicator, they'll ferment every last drop of it into space hooch. Hmm, I wonder if there's a market for that...
- felix_nagaand 8y agoThe same market goldschlager is in.
- fhood 8y agoI was going to ask about the availability of oxygen and sunlight.
- LeifCarrotson 8y agoOxygen? Don't you mean water? Most plants need some oxygen for the root network, but photosynthesis produces an excess of oxygen and doesn't require it to run.
- rm_-rf_slash 8y agoI think it was a sleight-of-hand move by NASA to spur the development of decarbonizarion technologies.
- sidibe 8y agoGood point, this would be a great way to present it without triggering some people's political reactions to the topic.
- lawlessone 8y agoif they outright said it was something to with helping the environment Donald would have them cancel it.
- TeMPOraL 8y agoYeah, comes off as close to a call for spin-off tech as you can get without explicitly saying "climate change"...
- agumonkey 8y agoTerafactory: largest single block solar powered organic plant
- tsomctl 8y agoPhotosynthesis is only 0.1% to %2 efficient, while solar cells are over %20. So if you come up with a way to convert electricity into sugar that is at least %10 efficient, you are ahead. Not to mention that farming causes habitat destruction, and fertilizer and pesticides are also harmful.
- LeifCarrotson 8y agoThe issue is more complex than that - resiliency and cost are also important. It's literally dirt cheap and super easy in many parts of the world to drop sugar beets in the ground at 40 acres an hour. Photovoltaics (not even considering the chemistry equipment) to cover an hour's worth of planting will cost on the order of $20 million!
- soperj 8y agoDefinitely thought this was going to be about the Mars Bar factory CO2 output, which would have been cool if they could reuse that in the product they're making.
- jononor 8y agoHow much would people pay for a Mars bar that was produced on planet Mars?
- catena 8y agoPotentially millions, which would really mess with the Mars Bar standard. https://www.ft.com/content/34859346-b023-11e7-8076-0a4bdda92ca2 https://www.ft.com/content/34859346-b023-11e7-8076-0a4bdda92...
- benatkin 8y agoStraight out of Cookie Clicker: http://orteil.dashnet.org/cookieclicker/ http://orteil.dashnet.org/cookieclicker/
- s0rce 8y agoWho is the target audience for this? Seems like you should solicit research proposals and provide grant funding to academic or industrial research groups to actually do the work. They can't just work for free in hopes they get 250k or 1M...
- LeifCarrotson 8y agoThere are already grants and proposals for similar research. This competition targets two groups that aren't well-represented by that process: 1. Individuals (hobbyists) who will work for free in hopes of winning. 2. Well-funded academics and industry R&D who will bill their costs against their employers, who hope to profit from the publicity generated by the public contest.
- JorgeGT 8y agoSpot on with nº2, look at the winners of the similar "Horizon Prizes" that the EU offers: https://ec.europa.eu/research/horizonprize/index.cfm?pg=prizes https://ec.europa.eu/research/horizonprize/index.cfm?pg=priz...
- gammateam 8y agopublicity with a nice paycheck too
- te 8y agoIf someone can figure out CO2 -> C6H12O6, it's probably worth more than $1mm.
- gammateam 8y agoaren't there other -tose variants that may be easier? they are all pretty complex. mars also has lots of interesting isotopes, which I guess helps the equation
- arzeth 8y agoThat reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Shredder_Challenge_2011 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Shredder_Challenge_2011 https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-what-really-happened-at-the-darpa-shredder-challenge-2011-12 https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-what-really-happened-a... which was thought to be almost impossible to solve. > DARPA, The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, created 5 coded-documents of increasing complexity, ran them through an industrial paper-shredder, scanned the pieces, and posted them online for anyone to attempt to solve. Each document had a certain amount of 'intel', every piece of which was given a point value. The competition, which launched October 27 and would expire December 4, was offering a prize of $50,000 to the first individual or team to find all the intel (first to 50 points). > The competition gained popularity quickly, with over 9000 official entrants and 50,000 folks downloading the first of the five puzzles. But skeptics had already begun to question the contest after only 67 entrants could score any points at all. "Lots of experts were skeptical that a solution could be produced at all, let alone within the short time frame," said Dan Kaufman, director, DARPA Information Innovation Office. But, with just 2 days remaining before the competition was closed (only 33 days after it began) one of the entrants had solved all 5 levels completely.
- njarboe 8y agoIf NASA is really serious about people living on Mars, I would think that they should build a rotating space station with Mars level of pseudo-gravity. Two decent sized chambers connected by a tether might be the easiest to build. If one really wants to see if something complicated will work on Mars, running it in Martian G, is the only way to be sure. Long term studies in the current space station seem to suggest that humans can't live years at zero G without serious health problems developing. It would useful to try out Mars gravity (38% of Earth's) somewhat closer to Earth than the surface of Mars.
- mhh__ 8y agoCould you link/cite the studies you have in mind, njarboe
- njarboe 8y agoIt is well known that zero g causes many problems with the human anatomy. Google "effect of zero g on astronauts site:nasa.gov" and you'll have a list of links to studies and descriptions of the problems from the reliable NASA website. What sort of studies in particular would you be interested in?
- microtherion 8y agoSeems a somewhat odd project, at least for the stated purpose, given that there's now evidence that there is not even enough CO2 on Mars to easily create a breathable atmosphere: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-018-0529-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-018-0529-6
- yellowapple 8y agoA million bucks is a bit steep for a plant, no? And yes, you do need water for plants, but you're probably going to need hydrogen from somewhere anyway. Mars does have a decent amount of water ice ripe for melting.
- innocentfelon 8y agoEveryone seems to misunderstand photosynthesis. It can’t occur without water, and in fact, the oxygen plants release is from the water, not the CO2. The smart money on useful compounds is CO and O2, made possible with high temperatures, CO2, and not much else.