It had been a long time since the lunar scientific research station was built. The number of permanent residents on the Moon had almost doubled every year, and there were now more than 50 people.
However, this kind of population growth wasn't unlimited.
Starting from this year, the Lunar Orbit Committee announced that they would limit the increase in the number of permanent residents on the Moon in the short term. They also required the management unit to maintain the current scientific research plan and lunar resource development plan, and to limit the number of permanent residents on the lunar scientific research station to less than 60 people.
The reason for this arrangement wasn't entirely because the cost of maintaining an astronaut's life in space was too high, but because the actual conditions didn't allow for it.
Just like the sanitation problems faced by many megacities, even though the population of the lunar scientific research station was far from reaching the level of a city, because there was no ecosystem for natural degradation, the difficulty of solving the sanitation problem increased exponentially with the growth of the population.
According to the normal needs of an adult, the daily production of domestic waste was about 1 kilogram, of which metabolic waste accounted for more than 50%. There was almost no way for the lunar scientific research station to completely dispose of this metabolic waste.
Even though the lunar plant growth unit could consume some of the feces and urine, allowing organic matter to re-enter the circulation, this circulation efficiency wasn't very high.
Coupled with some bacterial and microbial pollution, sanitation and safety had become a problem that couldn't be ignored on the lunar scientific research station. Just to transport the waste back to Earth had already taken up the transportation resources of an entire transport ship.
If the scale of the population continued to increase, perhaps the Lunar Orbit Committee would have to specially plan a dedicated route for the transportation of feces and urine.
However, the emergence of the Dr-111 microorganism brought about a turnaround.
No one knew where it came from. It was as if the project had suddenly appeared in the database, and one day, it was suddenly assigned to a research team.
Although some people were curious about who the expert was and where he collected such a powerful microorganism sample, due to the lack of documentation, none of this was known.
Lu Zhou drank his coffee and looked at the data from the lunar scientific research station on the screen. He had a knowing look on his face.
Just as he guessed, this Dr-111 microorganism wasn't that simple.
In an aerobic environment, while decomposing metabolites through respiration, it would also accumulate ketones. In fact, although these ketones were harmless to other organisms, they were harmful to itself.
Prolonged exposure to an aerobic environment would slow down the reproduction of the microflora and eventually lead to self-destruction.
However, on the contrary, if it was in an environment with high nitrogen and carbon dioxide concentrations, as well as light, this kind of microorganism would have an amazing reproductive and feeding ability.
While swallowing and breaking down metabolites, it would produce oxygen through photosynthesis, fixing solar energy in a special amino acid chain.
Although the taste might not be ideal if eaten directly, this special amino acid chain could be digested by most organisms, which meant that it could directly enter the ecosystem's cycle.
Not only that, this creature had an extraordinary tolerance for low-gravity environments, and even under the direct irradiation of cosmic rays, it could maintain the stability of its overall characteristics through the decomposition and devouring of its own cancer cells.
This thing was simply the best waste purification material!
It was a waste of talent to use it on Earth. Space stations and space colonies were where it should be.
After reading the experiment report from beginning to end, the expression on Lu Zhou's face became more and more satisfied. Then, at this moment, a flash of inspiration flashed through his mind — or rather, a hole in his brain.
"Could this thing be some kind of artificially created atmospheric modification material?"
A civilization that entered the interstellar era created it and then sowed it on a chaotic planet that had just formed an atmosphere to develop a colony for their own civilization.
This interesting microorganism would multiply wildly in an atmospheric environment with a high concentration of carbon dioxide, growing exponentially, and even covering the entire surface of the planet.
Finally, in countless stellar years, it acted as both a producer and a decomposer, absorbing excess carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen, accelerating the process of atmospheric evolution. At the same time, more carbon elements were fixed through photosynthesis into organic matter that could be directly used by organisms and entered the biosphere's cycle.
In the final stage, with the continuous increase of oxygen, photosynthesis gradually became respiration, and the produced ketones began to kill this microorganism, causing it to lose its reproductive ability until it completely disappeared from the entire ecosystem.
After all that was done, a chaotic planet covered in carbon dioxide would probably only need a few dozen stellar years to complete the atmospheric evolution process that would have taken hundreds of millions of years.
The more Lu Zhou thought about it, the more he felt this was possible.
After all, there were too few planets in this universe with an atmospheric environment suitable for the survival of carbon-based creatures, and oxidation was the way for most creatures to obtain energy.
Under the conditions of natural evolution, it might take hundreds of millions of years for a chaotic planet filled with carbon dioxide and nitrogen to become a relatively habitable world with prosperous species.
If a civilization developed to the level of an interstellar civilization and could expand its territory to an area within hundreds of light-years through faster than light means, mastering planetary modification technology was not impossible.
It was even to the extent that it was almost inevitable.
After all, the nature of civilization was to transform nature.
Only beasts would choose to obey.
"I didn't expect to find such an incredible thing …"
Shocked by his own thoughts, Lu Zhou's pupils gradually became tinged with excitement.
If his thoughts were true, then the microorganism in his hands would not be as simple as a "space version of waste purifier", but a living fossil from a higher civilization!
Not only was the microorganism itself worth studying, but it might also contain biological modification technology and genetic modification technology.
Lu Zhou didn't know how much he could reverse engineer from it, but even if there was only a small gain, it would be of great help to human civilization in the early days of the space age.
In addition, Lu Zhou also thought about Mars, which was close at hand.
It was not realistic to directly transform the atmosphere of Mars. After all, the gravity of Mars was too small, and there was no magnetic field protection. Even if an atmosphere similar to that of Earth was created, it would eventually be lost.
However, if it was in a limited area, it was still quite feasible to establish a relatively closed large-scale biosphere.
With the environmental modification ability of this microorganism, as long as the method and modification plan were used appropriately, it might not be a problem to create such a closed biosphere on Mars.
Thinking about this, for some reason, Lu Zhou suddenly remembered what the observer said to him, and an inexplicable and terrifying thought rose in his mind.
Everything was arranged for the best was unlikely.
But maybe …
This Solar System, it was possible that it had been "designed" …
Wonderful Book House
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