Terraforming of Mars and Venus

[Druckles]

No... although that gives me an idea for my next dastardly plan...

Mua ha ha!

 

[Cheomesh]

No... although that gives me an idea for my next dastardly plan...

Mua ha ha!

Hm...I call that Trench!

Imma put a house there :|

All fossils n stuff are mine, too.

 

[Druckles]

I just had deja vu.... but like with me... instead of someone else...

 

[Eejit]

Okay, so we would still need to genetically engineer existing bacteria with the features of xerophiles, psychrophiles, and Deinococcus radiodurans.

radiodurans would presumably be the base.

Something tells me that the genes for resistance to radiation, cold or lack of water would not react very well together. For instance, deinococcus radiodurans might use water in their radioresistant behavior, or xerophiles might depend on other substances, like methane, which are not available in the atmosphere of mars.

radiodurans has the same repair mechanisms as all other organisms, just thousands of times more efficient.
Most species are 'designed' not to have 100% efficient DNA repair as this would slow evolutionary progress.
Cold and drought tolerant extremeophiles typically use similar mechanisms. Usually proteins which provide alternative solute to water.
Genes would have to be brought from chemolithic bacteria too, such as those found deep in the crust where there's basically no air anyway.

And as for the other comments, I have studied microbiology. I just genetically engineered a colony of bacteria to be flourescent and resistant to ampicillin.

I'm working on similar things atm, with plasmids, resistances etc. Haven't gotten to GFP or similar yet in practicals.

I think that we could, eventually, figure out how to engineer such a bacteria, but would this even solve anything? Bacteria might fix carbon dioxide and turn it into oxygen via photosynthesis, but how fast can this reaction occur? How viable are genetically engineered bacteria when they have to spend so much of their resources on defending against cosmic radiation, existing with little water, and avoiding extreme temperatures?

It doesn't matter how fast it occurs really. If it works, and the bacteria are viable you just brew up huge amount in orbit and spray it down. The colonies will grow, at exponential speeds like all asexually reproducing microbes.
It's not like you're in a hurry.

The ideal mars-terraforming bacteria (imo) will be nitrogen releasing chemolithotroph based on radiodurans (little mutation + radiation/cold resistance since it can survive in space), with a wide range of photosynthetic pigments for photosynthesis and trapping heat.
Difficult, but feasible I think. Pretty sure all the building blocks are there.