Future Martian Colonies Powered By Algae?

(Hat Tip: IsraGood, Image Credit: Ken Rust via Got Algae?)

Mars is cold. It's unbelievably cold. In order for future colonists to avoid freezing to death (as well as their machines), they are going to need a source of energy to provide heat.

While innovative solar power may be able to help keep a small outpost alive, it will probably not be able to power large settlements.

Even though nuclear power plants have proven their worth as far as energy goes, Earthly politics may prevent them from being used on Mars, as launching anything nuclear has the side affect of making a million minds nervous.

In order to establish thriving cities upon the pink deserts of Mars, future colonists may have to turn towards algae in order to keep their cities (and rovers) alive.

(Haaretz.com) "I am constantly dumbfounded by this plant. This little thing is the baseline for the production of oxygen in the world; it knows how to use carbon dioxide and turn it into oxygen. It amazes me that despite this, algae are not given enough respect, and instead are treated like green slime." [...]

Berzin, the founder of GreenFuel Technologies - a U.S. company that produces green fuel from algae - discovered that "green slime" contains one of the keys to the alternative fuel the world is seeking. His company is the first ever to develop and produce biofuels from algae that are bred on gases emitted by power plants. It might sound like some sort of magic trick to put algae, CO2 and sunlight into a box and come out with fuel, but Berzin did it.

The fuel from these algae may not only help to keep the lights on within future Martian cities, but also enable them to develop faster (human driven) rovers, as the solar powered ones on Mars are definitely lacking in the speed department.

Since Mars has plenty of CO₂ within its atmosphere, future colonists could easily pull this gas from the Martian environment, as well as from "the nostrils" of humans and pigs (after they exhale that is).

Mars also has no shortage of water, and while it will have to be heavily filtered, it could be more than enough to satisfy the thirst of these terrestrial algae.

Israel Preparing For Space Warfare?

This is probably in response to Iran's desire to become a space power, which isn't too surprising giving the regimes historical doubts regarding the holocaust. (note: which is absurd if you ask me)

(Jerusalem Post) From a purely operational perspective, [Israel Air Force chief Maj.-Gen. Eliezer] Shkedy added, Israel needed to become fully autonomous in its space industry and develop its own capabilities. While not relating to China's motivations for destroying its satellite in the fashion that it did, Shkedy said the message "cannot be ignored."

"Battle in space is on our agenda, whether we want it there or not. We need to understand how we develop and protect our space assets at the relevant time. Within five to 10 years this will sadly be very relevant. There may be those who would seek to harm our forces in space, as they would our forces on land and at sea. We could face this reality in a high-intensity conflict in the future," Shkedy said.

With Israel taking steps to defend its space in space (note: no pun intended), other nations will be forced to take similar measures in order to simply stay where they are in the world hierarchy.

Although their will always be a potential for us wiping ourselves off the face of the Earth, a benefit to this military space race could be greater investment in space technology, and perhaps a re-prioritizing of space in general. This will hopefully result in us actually visiting the worlds we see through our telescope, instead of talking about them from afar.