Team:UNIK Copenhagen/Description

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Moss… In space!

Exploring beyond Earth requires technological innovations, both industrial and for sustaining life in a hostile environment. Mars is an extremely hostile environment for any organism to survive. There is very little oxygen, high levels of radiation, and dangerous substances in the soil. Astronauts could live out their lives never touching martian soil, but our ambition is much more than astronauts living in metal boxes.

Our motivation for exploring space is quite simple. It's completely new! There is literally a lot of space! Our planetary system has a tremendous amount of physical resources. But it's more than that.

Can we inspire a generation of people, inundated by every good idea ever thought, that there actually are entire worlds which are unexplored? The necessary means of connecting with these worlds has not been created, the tools and machines to explore, exploit, and create as well, so let's get on with it.

We plan to use moss to transform the surface of mars to a habitable environment. Moss is the Chuck Norris of the plant kingdom. Capable of surviving extreme conditions and living off of very few nutrients, moss can even grow on the bare rock.

Red Lab and Green Lab

Red Lab

In the 'Red Lab', the team will expose the moss to harsh martian conditions, including extreme temperature differences, fake martian soil, radiation exposure, pressure and CO2 concentrations. More about Red Lab

Green Lab

In the 'Green Lab', the team will attempt to make the moss more hardy by modifying it with an 'anti-freeze' gene from a ringworm. This amazing feature works by attaching onto the ends of the ice crystals forming in the cell, slowing down the growth of the crystals. More about Green Lab

Ethical Implications

Currently, there is a political treaty called the Outer Space Treatywhich deals with scientific experiments on foreign bodies. What kind of dialogue is needed for what we can do, and what we should do, utilizing synthetic biology to potentially make Mars habitable? How can we keep in consideration all viewpoints to make our continued journey a most successful one? We invite you to join the conversation.