I was watching this movie the other day and (to not spoil the movie I won’t reveal the title) at the end there’s a scene where a rocket filled with plant spores exploded across our solar system. The result? Plants begin to grow on our neighboring planets like Mars and even the moon. It got me thinking…why haven’t we done this yet? With all the rovers we’ve sent to Mars, had one carried with it seedlings could it have lived on Mars and thrived? In a few hundred years, perhaps even giving the red planet back its atmosphere? It seems to me like we have all the tools to do this, yet we haven’t even tried to. So I did a little digging.

It turns out NASA is already contemplating this question. They’ve discovered that Martian soil has all the nutrients to grow plants. The question is if there will be enough of it to sustain life. Additional fertilizers might be necessary. Another article I found from Inverse Science reminds me that sending Earthly lifeforms to other planets or any celestial bodies is illegal. The ramification is too damaging to even pursue as one bacteria might grow exponentially without competition and wipe out any chance of other lifeforms that could’ve existed there. Bummer. 

BUT the article also states that scientists are not forgoing the possibilities of looking for a second Earth. Heck, that’s Elon Musk’s current mission right now. So that law may see some changes in the near future. Whatever the methods, I think the first step to “colonize” any planet is by planting it with seedlings and let nature do the rest. If we preserve our own plant ecology here though, perhaps we won’t need a second Earth.

Header image is a scene from Cowboy Bebop. To colonize Venus, a special plant was introduced to the planet that forms these floating canopies. This anime aired in 1998 by the way, but it has the most realistic depiction of how humans could’ve eventually colonized the entire solar system.