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Why Nothing Can Grow on Mars
Making sense of progress in biotechnology. Visit our website: press.asimov.com
In 1923, a German physicist, Hermann Oberth, described giant space mirrors spanning hundreds of kilometers in diameter that could redirect solar radiation to warm a planet’s surface and make it habitable to astronauts. While astronauts are easily protected from UV by glass or a thin sheet of metal, microbes placed outside on Mars would be killed in mere minutes as the ultraviolet radiation shreds through DNA and destabilizes proteins that carry out important cellular processes. This benefit will also extend to Earth, where much of the cost of biomanufacturing is wrapped up in catering to fragile organisms that require stable pH, temperature, and aeration conditions and can only grow on sterile and pure feedstocks.
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