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Arthur Clarke, screenwriter for the blockbuster film “2001: A Space Odyssey,” has been resurrected as an advanced OpenAI chatbot to help map out the transformation of Mars into a new Eden for humanity and to recount the future’s spacefaring odysseys (Photo by Movie Poster Image Art\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Getty Images<\/p>\n
To speed up their masterplan to recreate Mars in the Earth\u2019s image, as a new bioengineered Eden for human colonists, two cutting-edge scientists have teamed up with the science fiction juggernaut Arthur Clarke to map out the Red Planet\u2019s transformation.<\/p>\n
Clarke, screenwriter on the blockbuster film 2001: A Space Odyssey, has been given a new incarnation as ArthurGPT, an uncanny double who can sketch out captivating space scenarios and predict a spectrum of futures for explorers who lead the Earth\u2019s evolution into a spacefaring civilization.<\/p>\n
Pete Worden, a leading American astrophysicist<\/a> who headed the NASA Ames Research Center in California during its its halcyon days of out-of-the-box experimentation<\/a>, says more than two decades after he first met with Arthur Clarke, he helped give the stargazing writer a new life, as an avatar co-created with the artificial intelligence colossus OpenAI.<\/p>\n Astrophysicist Pete Worden headed the NASA Ames Research Center, in Silicon Valley, during its halcyon age of freewheeling experiments. Image courtesy National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). (Photo by Smith Collection\/Gado\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n Getty Images<\/p>\n Worden says he held a long-lasting dialogue with Clarke on the prospects to restore the oceans and atmosphere of Mars, and to found a Martian-human civilization. When he chatted with ArthurGPT, earlier this year, on the new momentum toward speeding astronauts to Mars, he was stunned by the avatar\u2019s kindred persona as a visionary on interplanetary exploration.<\/p>\n He quickly realized Clark\u2019s digital doppelg\u00e4nger would be the perfect collaborator for a new study he headed on transforming Mars from a frigid, almost airless orb into an oxygen-rich, hyper-tech haven for future waves of planet-hopping nomads.<\/p>\n When they published their joint paper, \u201cEngineering Microbial Symbiosis for Mars Habitability,\u201d Worden tells me in an interview, editors at the prestigious Journal of the British Interplanetary Society listed ArthurGPT as a co-author.<\/p>\n The new Mars paper in a sense marked Arthur Clarke\u2019s return to the British Interplanetary Society.<\/p>\n \u201cThe original Arthur,\u201d Worden says, \u201cwas an early British Interplanetary Society leader.\u201d<\/p>\n This pilot project in co-writing a vanguard overview on reshaping Mars as a second-world sanctuary for humans\u2014in partnership with a fascinating AI-powered futurist\u2014is just the latest highlight in Worden\u2019s freewheeling innovations in the sphere of space.<\/p>\n When he was despatched to head up NASA Ames, in the Wild West tech capital of Silicon Valley, Worden invited a constellation of young space scientists\u2014regarded as rebels by traditionalists inside the agency\u2014to take up posts across the outpost, including the future founders of the revolutionary satellite outfit Planet Labs<\/a>.<\/p>\n Pete Worden’s wunderkind prot\u00e9g\u00e9es at NASA Ames included the future founders of Planet Labs, who transformed leading-edge smartphones into the world’s smallest imaging satellites. Shown here is the revolutionary satellite outfit’s headquarters in downtown San Francisco. (Photo By Michael Macor\/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)<\/p>\n San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images<\/p>\n Breakthroughs launched by these prot\u00e9g\u00e9es, and praised by a visiting President Barack Obama, included transforming smartphones into the world\u2019s smallest imaging satellites, and democratizing access to astounding photographs shot from low Earth orbit.<\/p>\n NASA Ames\u2019 rapid-fire rise as one of the country\u2019s leading skunkworks for space-tech advances, and Worden\u2019s part in that metamorphosis, were brought to life in in HBO\u2019s sensational new documentary<\/a> Wild Wild Space.<\/p>\n Along with ArthurGPT and (human) co-author Randall Correll, an expert on Einstein\u2019s General Relativity, black holes, warped spacetime<\/a> and human spaceflight, Worden states in their new paper: \u201cThe colonization of Mars presents extraordinary challenges, including radiation exposure, low atmospheric pressure, and toxic regolith.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRecent advancements in synthetic biology and genetic engineering,\u201d they add, \u201coffer unprecedented opportunities to address these obstacles.\u201d<\/p>\n Ongoing leaps in gene modification technologies are giving rise to toolkits \u201cfor enabling life to adapt and thrive on Mars while advancing humanity\u2019s aspirations for interplanetary habitation and exploration.\u201d<\/p>\n The potential to create an Earth-like biosphere on Mars could be powered by a cascade of bioengineering breakthroughs.<\/p>\n Researchers could use CRISPR genome editing tools to develop plants that can survive on the Martian dunes despite the high levels of hazardous radiation that hit the surface sands.<\/p>\n Microbes could be redesigned to remediate poisonous perchlorates that plague the soil, opening the way for Eden-like gardens across expanding oases, and releasing oxygen in the process to slowly build up the atmosphere.<\/p>\n \u201cPhotosynthetic microorganisms could be deployed,\u201d they add, \u201cto convert atmospheric CO2 into oxygen, supporting both human respiration and fuel production.\u201d<\/p>\n Worden tells me in an interview that these bio-tech proposals, once considered realizable only in the far-off future, are being propelled partly by a ring of positive signs that are emerging on rocketing the first astronauts to Mars, and then to begin robotically building the great geodesic domes<\/a> that will shield the Red Planet\u2019s first cosmopolis and botanical gardens, surrounded by landing pads for flotillas of SpaceX Starships.<\/p>\n While the last several flight tests of the Starship super-capsule\u2014the most powerful and advanced spacecraft ever designed on Earth\u2014have ended in pyrotechnic explosions, Worden still predicts they will spearhead the exploration and colonization of Mars.<\/p>\n While racing to perfect its Starship super-capsule, SpaceX has seen a few flight tests end in pyrotechnic explosions, but former NASA leader Pete Worden says these remarkable ships will spearhead the human colonization of Mars. (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA \/ AFP) (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n SpaceX founder Elon Musk declared last summer, on his messaging platform X, that he aims to launch five Starships, transporting brigades of robots, to Mars late next year, when the next Earth-Mars orbital transfer window opens, and that the first Mars-bound aeronauts will be lofted two years later.<\/p>\n These Starships, and other independent new rockets waiting in the wings, Worden says, are the key to building up the first Martian citadels, and to the emergence of a twin-planet civilization.<\/p>\n Other auspicious portents are appearing, Worden says, that signal initial Mars colonies could begin spreading out, beneath crystalline hemispheric domes, across the 2030s.<\/p>\n The White House\u2019s proposed budget for NASA includes, for the first time ever, funding for precursor missions to a human landing on Mars, and NASA\u2019s leadership stated recently that these uncrewed demo flights could begin in 2026.<\/p>\n