Blog 28: Designing Life for Other Worlds

Hey everyone! Today I will be talking about a topic that will likely not be relevant for at least another decade. But hey, I guess you never know. What if I were to tell you that the way we explore space in the future might not be with rockets, but a microbe…

In today’s world, we imagine future astronauts stepping onto Mars with high-tech suits, rovers, and habitats. But synthetic biology is potentially introducing a new idea: instead of forcing Earth life to survive in other worlds, why not engineer life that already fits there?

For the first time in human history, we have the tools to design organisms that could help us breathe, grow food, build materials, and survive beyond Earth. The next space revolution might not come from NASA or SpaceX. It could come from biology.

Why Space Is So Hard for Life

Space is the most hostile environment we know. There is no oxygen, super intense radiation, extreme cold, toxic soils, microgravity, and it lacks the protective magnetic field that the Earth has. 

Earth organisms were never built for this. However, the good news is, synthetic biology doesn’t rely on what evolution has given us. It lets us redesign life from scratch.

If life can adapt to Earth over billions of years… maybe we can help it adapt to Mars in a few.

Engineering Microbes for Mars

Mars is the most likely planet to have Synthetic Biology used on it. Mars is dry, cold, and blasted by radiation. But it does have the ingredients for life: carbon, nitrogen, minerals, and even water locked in ice. All it’s missing is biology.

Right now, synthetic biologists are exploring how engineered microbes could:

1. Produce Oxygen

By modifying photosynthetic bacteria or algae to survive in Martian soil and harsh UV light, we could create tiny oxygen factories. Instead of bringing huge oxygen tanks, astronauts would be able to bring a few vials of engineered microbes. This also cuts down on transportation costs and could save the multiple trips it would take to replenish diminishing oxygen supplies. 

2. Create Fertile Soil

Right now, Mars’s soil is toxic and nutrient-poor. Having these engineered microbes could do many beneficial things for the soil. 1) It could break down perchlorates (toxic chemicals), 2) release phosphorus (which is fundamental for life), and 3) give Mars the ability to build organic matter.

In other words, we could literally turn dead soil into living soil and give ourselves the ability to farm in space. 

3. Produce Food, Fuel, and Medicine

Yeast and bacteria can already produce medicines, vitamins, and proteins on Earth. This wouldn’t change on Mars as they could continue to produce insulin, make antibiotics, grow edible proteins, and even generate biofuels.

Instead of shipping supplies from Earth, astronauts could create what they need using biology.

Synthetic Ecosystems: Life as Infrastructure

Synthetic biologists are also now imagining closed-loop ecosystems for space habitats. For example, scientists are already starting to brainstorm ideas on:

• Plants engineered for low light and low pressure
  
  

• Microbes that recycle carbon dioxide into sugars
  
  

• Bacteria that break down waste into clean water
  
  

• Fungi that produce building materials

If successful, we could have the necessary tools (biological systems) to give Mars a real chance at supporting human life. 

The Issue with Radiation

One of Mars’s biggest threats is the radiation, which is about 50–100x times higher than on Earth. But some organisms already handle that effortlessly:

• Deinococcus radiodurans (a form of bacteria) survives radiation strong enough to sterilize lab equipment.
  
  

• Tardigrades protect their DNA with special proteins.
  
  

• Desert microbes survive extreme dryness and UV.

Synthetic biology could transfer the genes responsible for these special abilities into engineered microbes.

Should We Seed Other Worlds With Life?

If we create organisms that survive on Mars and release them, are we creating alien life? And is that okay?

Some scientists argue we must avoid contaminating other planets. Others argue that life spreading is natural and that humans are simply continuing what biology has done for billions of years.

The real question then is: Are we responsible only for life on Earth, or for life everywhere it can exist?

Life as a Space Technology + Final Remarks:

The next chapter of space exploration won’t just be astronauts and robots. It will be engineered ecosystems, microbes that terraform soil, and biological factories that turn raw rock into resources.

Life itself could become our most powerful space technology.

Maybe the first “Martians” won’t be humans. They’ll be the microbes we design to prepare the way.

That’s all I have for today. I know it may be a little off-topic with the others, but this is one of the coolest applications of Synthetic Biology that I have come across so far. I hope you guys found this idea as cool as I did. For more research and updates on this topic, simply search for “Synthetic Biology and the future of space,” and you will find many powerful sources to read from. Anyway, that’s all I got. I hope you enjoyed this week's blog post. Can’t wait to see you again next week!

– Aidan Kincaid