
Nasa launches $1M competition to turn Mars CO2 into sugar - bochoh
https://www.newsweek.com/nasa-launches-competition-turn-co2-sugar-mars-1103017
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arzeth
That reminds me of

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Shredder_Challenge_2011](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Shredder_Challenge_2011)

[https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-what-really-
happened-a...](https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-what-really-happened-at-
the-darpa-shredder-challenge-2011-12)

which was thought to be almost impossible to solve.

> DARPA, The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, created 5 coded-
> documents of increasing complexity, ran them through an industrial paper-
> shredder, scanned the pieces, and posted them online for anyone to attempt
> to solve. Each document had a certain amount of 'intel', every piece of
> which was given a point value. The competition, which launched October 27
> and would expire December 4, was offering a prize of $50,000 to the first
> individual or team to find all the intel (first to 50 points).

> The competition gained popularity quickly, with over 9000 official entrants
> and 50,000 folks downloading the first of the five puzzles. But skeptics had
> already begun to question the contest after only 67 entrants could score any
> points at all. "Lots of experts were skeptical that a solution could be
> produced at all, let alone within the short time frame," said Dan Kaufman,
> director, DARPA Information Innovation Office. But, with just 2 days
> remaining before the competition was closed (only 33 days after it began)
> one of the entrants had solved all 5 levels completely.

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umvi
I was going to suggest we should hold competitions for turning Earth's CO2 in
sugar as well, but then I remembered you can just plant seeds.

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rm_-rf_slash
I think it was a sleight-of-hand move by NASA to spur the development of
decarbonizarion technologies.

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sidibe
Good point, this would be a great way to present it without triggering some
people's political reactions to the topic.

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s0rce
Who is the target audience for this? Seems like you should solicit research
proposals and provide grant funding to academic or industrial research groups
to actually do the work. They can't just work for free in hopes they get 250k
or 1M...

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LeifCarrotson
There are already grants and proposals for similar research. This competition
targets two groups that aren't well-represented by that process:

1\. Individuals (hobbyists) who will work for free in hopes of winning.

2\. Well-funded academics and industry R&D who will bill their costs against
their employers, who hope to profit from the publicity generated by the public
contest.

~~~
JorgeGT
Spot on with nº2, look at the winners of the similar "Horizon Prizes" that the
EU offers:
[https://ec.europa.eu/research/horizonprize/index.cfm?pg=priz...](https://ec.europa.eu/research/horizonprize/index.cfm?pg=prizes)

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te
If someone can figure out CO2 -> C6H12O6, it's probably worth more than $1mm.

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gammateam
aren't there other -tose variants that may be easier? they are all pretty
complex.

mars also has lots of interesting isotopes, which I guess helps the equation

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njarboe
If NASA is really serious about people living on Mars, I would think that they
should build a rotating space station with Mars level of pseudo-gravity. Two
decent sized chambers connected by a tether might be the easiest to build. If
one really wants to see if something complicated will work on Mars, running it
in Martian G, is the only way to be sure.

Long term studies in the current space station seem to suggest that humans
can't live years at zero G without serious health problems developing. It
would useful to try out Mars gravity (38% of Earth's) somewhat closer to Earth
than the surface of Mars.

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mhh__
Could you link/cite the studies you have in mind, njarboe

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njarboe
It is well known that zero g causes many problems with the human anatomy.
Google "effect of zero g on astronauts site:nasa.gov" and you'll have a list
of links to studies and descriptions of the problems from the reliable NASA
website. What sort of studies in particular would you be interested in?

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benatkin
Straight out of Cookie Clicker:
[http://orteil.dashnet.org/cookieclicker/](http://orteil.dashnet.org/cookieclicker/)

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innocentfelon
Everyone seems to misunderstand photosynthesis. It can’t occur without water,
and in fact, the oxygen plants release is from the water, not the CO2.

The smart money on useful compounds is CO and O2, made possible with high
temperatures, CO2, and not much else.

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microtherion
Seems a somewhat odd project, at least for the stated purpose, given that
there's now evidence that there is not even enough CO2 on Mars to easily
create a breathable atmosphere:
[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-018-0529-6](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-018-0529-6)

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yellowapple
A million bucks is a bit steep for a plant, no?

And yes, you do need water for plants, but you're probably going to need
hydrogen from somewhere anyway. Mars does have a decent amount of water ice
ripe for melting.

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soperj
Definitely thought this was going to be about the Mars Bar factory CO2 output,
which would have been cool if they could reuse that in the product they're
making.

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jononor
How much would people pay for a Mars bar that was produced on planet Mars?

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catena
Potentially millions, which would really mess with the Mars Bar standard.

[https://www.ft.com/content/34859346-b023-11e7-8076-0a4bdda92...](https://www.ft.com/content/34859346-b023-11e7-8076-0a4bdda92ca2)

