NASA is offering $1 million in a new type of space race — to convert carbon dioxide into other compounds that can potentially be used to sustain life on Mars.
the space agency is looking for scientists to figure out š how to transform the carbonź§ dioxide thatās abundant on the Red Planet into glucose.
“Enabling sustained human life on another planet will require a great deal of resources and we cannot possibly bring everything we will need. We have to get creative,” said Monsi Roman, program manager of “If we can transform an existing and plentiful resource like carbon dioxide into a variety of useful products, the space ā and terrestrial ā applications are endless.”
Carbon, oxygen and hydrogen molecules are the building blocks of sugars, which NASA said āare preferred microbial energy sources” because they’re easy to metabolize.
The contest is divided into two phases.
NASA is offering $50,000 each to up to five teams that submit a design and descriptiāon of a šconversion system that includes ādetails of the physical-chemical approaches to convert carbon dioxide into glucose.ā
The secondš“ phase, the system construction āand demonstration stage, carries a prize of up to $750,000.
The ą¼registration ends on Jan. 24, 2019. The finalists will be announced in April 201š¦9.