NASA Opens $ 1 Million Public Contest to Turn Carbon Dioxide into Sugar on Mars

Even rocket scientists can sometimes use a little help.

NASA is asking the public to find a way to turn carbon dioxide into glucose. The catch is, it must happen on Mars.

If the job seems daunting, that's the case. But whoever does it could win part of NASA's $ 1 million prize.

"Enabling a sustained human life on another planet will require a lot of resources and we can not bring everything we need.We must be creative," said Monsi Roman, head of NASA's Centennial Challenges program. last week. "If we can transform an existing and abundant resource like carbon dioxide into a variety of useful products, space and ground applications are endless."

The competition comes from several goals that the space agency has for Mars and Earth.

"We are asking the public to help us convert carbon dioxide into sugar and the end of the game is very concrete," Roman told ABC News. "This conversion occurs naturally in photosynthesis on Earth all the time, it's a problem on Mars, there's a lot of carbon dioxide, if we have hydrogen, we can basically do designer farms."

The final product could be used as a food to help produce other products.

"The plan is to feed the bioreactors with food or containers containing microorganisms, which will be adapted to produce many different things," Roman said. "[They] can manufacture drugs, foods, bioplastics, depending on the design of microorganisms inside these vessels. "

It's something that NASA has not been able to understand alone, hence the challenge.

"It's one of the wonderful and interesting things about public competitions," said Angela Herblet, one of NASA's challenging tracks. "You've put it there, it's always amazing, sometimes these problems can be solved by people we did not know existed."

The total pot is $ 1 million, which will be distributed to winning teams in two phases. The first phase requires candidates to submit ideas. Government experts and NASA staff will evaluate the feasibility of the designs, according to David Hogan, another leader of the challenge. The top five in this round, which meet the specific requirements, will be announced in April 2019 and will each receive $ 50,000.

The second phase, which should begin next June, requires a demonstration. Competitors need to build a field system to feed carbon dioxide and hydrogen, and then produce the materials on earth. The remaining $ 750,000 will be split between the top three teams, with funds available for a bonus, NASA officials said.

Microbes, or microorganisms, use these types of compounds for food, said John Hogan, environmental scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. For example, baker's yeast feeds on sugar to stay alive.

"We have means for this process in the space, but we need food to make a product," he said. "These microorganisms are in stasis or dormant for long periods of time until we need them and give them life again."

The awakening of food is done by freeze-drying, air-drying or adding different types of protective products, Hogan said. He compared it to a leaven, which requires a regular diet.

"All these processes need food," Hogan said. "If you must have raised it [to Mars] with you, it's prohibitively expensive. We want to use resources on Mars to make food for the organisms. "

Since water was found on Mars soil, Hogan said they could divide the water into oxygen and use hydrogen to create carbohydrates, fats and proteins. "The idea is to make a sugar really easy."