From Earth to Mars: a blushing weed

Sydney Morning Herald ^ | April 26 2002 | Richard Macey

[dead]

Space weed. Dude. That is so cool.

[TomGuy]

A thousand years we worked,
hoeing and spraying,
to get rid of those damn weeds.
First Contact, and what do they bring?
Weeds!
Damn Weeds!
Marge, bring the hoe...
we've got work to do.

[techcor]

Hey, man, that martian red is some potent stuff. Bet Leno or Letterman combine it with a joke about Bloomberg. "When Bloomberg heard this he said, "Sign me up to be an astronaut."

[Corin Stormhands]

Earth to Mars: "Please accept this gift of flowers."

Mars to Earth: "Do you think I'm cheap? I'll expect dinner too."

[Nekman]

What if the martians already have Weed-B-Gone®?

[general_re]

Althoug it would definitely go higher than any weed before it, this "space weed" actually sounds pretty ordinary if you look it up.

...the most likely candidate would be "a less fussy plant", possibly the common weed arabidopsis.

"Arabidopsis thaliana is a common plant used for laboratory research. It is a member of the Brassicaceae, or Mustard family, along with broccoli and cauliflower. Arabidopsis is considered to be a "model" organism because it is easy to grow in the lab, it has a short life cycle and makes lots of seeds (which makes it good for genetics) and it has a small genome compared to other higher plants (like maize)."

Space broccoli. That sounds like a bad idea - carpet bombing the Martians with space broccoli.

[uglybiker]

How 'bout space kudzu? That stuff'll grow most anywhere!

[Yardstick]

No doubt! Pretty soon Mars would be the Green Planet...

[general_re]

If we're going to send plants into space, let's make them useful plants. It's about time our highly skilled geneticists got off their butts and got around to finally creating the Beer Tree.

[Wm Bach]

Terraform it! It is our destiny. Make it ours. The Prime Directive be-damned.

[realpatriot71]

Did someone say "space weed"?

Does federal law extend to a space colony?

[kitchen]

Do we have a NEPA issue here? I can't wait until the Wilderness Society gets hold of this.

[Carry_Okie]

Well the living environment on Mars is certainly rare, unspoiled, and fragile!

[techcor]

You should read a book called (I think) "Copernicus' Rebellion". Beer, bread, anything you wanted. Totally collapsed the world's economy.

[uglybiker]

Coming soon to a spaceport near you...

Martian Pale Ale and Barsoomian Amber.

[general_re]

I can see the label now...

[RightWhale]

Although Arabidopsis thaliana thrives even in Alaska it has to be replanted every year because moose eat all of it.

[darth]

So we're going to the only other planet in the Solar System with a high probabality of indigenous life and pollute the hell out of it? If we contaminate Mars with Earth organisms, we may never know what kind of life it supports now or in the past.

[editor-surveyor]

Talk about tampering!

Can you imagine the entire planet Mars covered with a glowing weed that could not be stopped because it had no natural enemies there; kind of a super tumble weed :o)