Assessing Viability of Life on Mars and Implications for Long-term Space Missions

As humanity expands its activities deeper into space, and for longer durations, it will be crucial to make space systems as self-sustaining as possible. This is especially true for human exploration of Mars, where it will be harder to rely on timely and frequent supplies from Earth, and will require building robust systems that utilize in-situ resources and the potential of bioregenerative processes. In this work, we adopt a computational approach to test the utility of bringing Earth ecosystems for long-term activities on Mars. Using ecological capabilities can be potentially useful for production of diverse sets of compounds for biological needs. To evaluate this, we conduct network analyses that combine the data of resource availability on Mars and bioinformatic data of Earth's ecosystems. We test if ecosystems from Earth could be viable and self-sustaining on Mars (specifically if they can keep producing metabolites essential for their own survival). Our methods and results allow taking quantitative steps toward asking fundamental questions about long-term sustainability of life in space environments, opening new avenues for asking how Earth-dependent we need to be in the short term, and providing pathways toward developing strategies for long-term sustainability.