NASA holds a prize of about 100 million yen, a competition to convert Martian carbon dioxide into sugar

by congerdesign

NASA announced that it will hold a competition called " NASA CO 2 Conversion Challenge " with the aim of converting carbon dioxide abundantly present on Mars into "useful substances". The prize money of this competition is a total of 1 million dollars (about 110 million yen).

New Competition Aims to Convert Carbon Dioxide into Sweet Success | NASA
https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/centennial_challenges/co2challenge/challenge-announced.html

NASA's $ 1 Million Mars - Settling Challenge: Turn CO 2 into Sugar
https://www.space.com/41717-nasa-mars-carbon-dioxide-challenge.html

NASA competition aims to convert carbon dioxide on Mars to useful products
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/New_NASA_competition_aims_to_convert_carbon_dioxide_into_exploration_sweet_success_999.html

NASA Mars Mission Contest Will Award $ 1 M for Turning CO 2 into Glucose | Fortune
http://fortune.com/2018/09/03/nasa-mars-mission-co2-contest/

The "useful substances" mentioned in this competition specifically refer to sugars such as glucose . As of 2018 biomaterials based on sugar can not be produced in space from the problem "resources, energy, crew work time is limited". The development of a system to produce sugar from carbon dioxide is a clue to solving this problem. Monsi Roman of the NASA Centennial Challenges program says, "It takes a lot of resources to make mankind alive on other planets, but you can not move as much resources as needed from the earth to the planet, it will be creative It is necessary. "

Since sugar has carbon and oxygen as molecules, it is theoretically possible to make sugar from carbon dioxide. Glucose is not only rich in energy but also easily metabolized, so it is considered easy to optimize conversion efficiency. The produced glucose can be a fuel for the bioreactor .

by Sttefan

The NASA CO2 Conversion Challenge is divided into two phases, the first phase is "to submit the details of the system that converts carbon dioxide to glucose". People with ideas will register on the website by January 24, 2019 and submit ideas by February 28. NASA plans to announce five finalists in April 2019, and if you are selected as a finalist you will receive $ 50,000 (about 5.5 million yen).

The second phase involves building and demonstrating the actual system, and the winner can receive $ 750,000 (about 83 million yen). The combined amount of Phase 1 and Phase 2 is one million dollars.

In addition, one of the entrance qualifications includes "being a citizen of the United States of America", even a person with a nationality outside the United States can participate as a member of the American base team. Applications can be made from the following website.

NASA CO2 Conversion Challenge
https://www.co2conversionchallenge.org