It has been a short period of time since the completion of the lunar research station, and the number of people living on the moon has almost doubled every year, and has now grown to more than 50 people.

However, this population growth is not without limits.

Since the beginning of this year, the Lunar Orbit Construction Committee has announced that it will limit the increase in the number of permanent residents on the lunar surface in the short term, and require the management unit to control the number of permanent personnel at the lunar research station to less than 60 as much as possible on the premise of maintaining the current scientific research plan and the lunar resource development plan.

The reason for this arrangement is not entirely that the cost of maintaining an astronaut's life in space is too high, but that the reality does not allow it.

Like the sanitation problems faced by many megacities, the population size of the lunar research station is far from the level of a city, but because there is no ecosystem that can be naturally degraded, the difficulty of solving the sanitation problem is exponentially magnified as the population grows.

According to the needs of an adult's normal life, the domestic garbage produced a day is about 1 kilogram, of which metabolic waste accounts for more than 50%, and for these metabolic wastes, there is almost no way to completely dispose of them.

Even if the lunar planting unit can consume some of the manure and urine and allow the organic matter to re-enter the cycle, this cycle is not very efficient.

Coupled with the contamination of some bacteria and microorganisms, health safety has become an issue that cannot be ignored on the lunar research station. Just to transport those domestic waste back to Earth, it has already taken up the capacity of an entire transport ship.

If the size of the population continues to expand, I am afraid that the Lunar Orbit Construction Committee will have to plan a special route for transporting feces and urine.

However, the emergence of Dr-111's live microorganisms has brought about a change in everything.

No one knew where it came from, and it was as if the project had suddenly appeared in the database, and one day it was suddenly assigned to work on it.

Although some people have wondered which big bull is and where to collect such awesome microbial samples, due to the lack of literature, all this is unknown.

Drinking coffee and looking at the data fed back from the lunar research station on the screen, Lu Zhou's face showed an expression that was really like this.

As he had guessed, the Dr-111 microbes were not that simple.

In an aerobic environment, it also accumulates a ketone while catalyzing metabolites through respiration, which is in fact harmless to other organisms, but harmful to itself.

Prolonged exposure to aerobic environments causes the entire microbiota to multiply slowly and eventually destroy itself.

On the contrary, in the presence of high nitrogen and carbon dioxide concentrations, and in the presence of light, the microorganism can explode with an astonishing ability to reproduce and feed.

While engulfing and catalyzing metabolites, it produces oxygen through photosynthesis, immobilizing solar energy in a special molecular chain of amino acids.

Although the taste may not be as ideal when eaten as is, this particular molecular chain of amino acids can be digested by the vast majority of living organisms, which means that it can directly enter the cycle of the ecosystem.

Not only that, but this organism has an extraordinary tolerance for low-gravity environments, and even when exposed to direct cosmic rays, it is able to maintain the stability of its overall traits by decomposing and engulfing its own cancer cells.

It's a great waste purifier!

It's a shame to use it on Earth, and the space station and space colonies are where it really should go.

From the beginning to the end of the experiment report, the expression on Lu Zhou's face became more and more satisfied. And then, at this moment, a flash of inspiration suddenly flashed in his mind—or a brain hole.

"Could this thing be some kind of man-made atmospheric modification substance?"

A civilization that has entered the interstellar age created it, and then planted it on a chaotic planet that had just formed an atmosphere to create colonies for its own civilization.

This intriguing microorganism will multiply wildly in an atmospheric environment with high carbon dioxide concentrations, growing exponentially and even covering the entire planet's surface.

Eventually, in countless stellar years, it acts as both a producer and a decomposer, absorbing excess carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen, accelerating the evolution of the atmosphere, and at the same time allowing more carbon to be fixed into organic matter that can be directly used by living organisms through photosynthesis and enter the biosphere cycle.

In the final stage, as oxygen rises, photosynthesis becomes respiration, and the resulting ketones begin to kill the microbiote and make it incapable of reproducing until it completely disappears from the entire ecosystem.

And after completing all these tasks, a chaotic planet covered in carbon dioxide may be able to complete the atmospheric evolution process that originally took hundreds of millions of years to complete in just a few dozen star years.

As soon as this brain hole is opened, it can't be stopped, and the more Lu Zhou thinks about it, the more he feels that there is such a possibility.

After all, there are too few planets in this universe that are suitable for carbon-based organisms, and oxidation reactions are the way for most organisms to obtain energy.

Under natural evolutionary conditions, it may take hundreds of millions of years for a chaotic planet rich in carbon dioxide and nitrogen to become a relatively habitable world with thriving species.

If a civilization has developed to the level of an interstellar civilization and can expand its territory to an area within hundreds of light-years by faster-than-light means, it is not impossible to master planetary modification technology.

Even, it's almost a necessity.

After all, the nature of civilization is the transformation of nature.

Only the beast will choose to be obedient.

"I didn't expect to find such an amazing thing......"

Shocked by his own thoughts, Lu Zhou's pupils gradually became excited.

If his idea is true, then the microorganisms in his hands at this moment will not be as simple as a simple "space version of waste purifier", but a living fossil from a certain advanced civilization!

It is worth studying not only the microorganisms themselves, but also the biological modification technologies and genetic modification technologies that may be included in them.

It is not clear how much can be reversed from this, but even a small gain will be of great help to human civilization in the early days of the space age.

In addition, Lu Zhou also thought of Mars, which was close at hand.

It is not realistic to directly modify the atmosphere of Mars, after all, the gravitational pull of Mars is too small, and there is no protection from the magnetic field, even if an atmosphere similar to the Earth is created, most of it will eventually be lost.

However, if in a limited area, the feasibility of establishing a relatively closed large biosphere is still quite large.

With the environmental modification ability of this kind of microorganism, as long as the methods and modification schemes used are appropriate, it may not be a problem to create such a closed biosphere on Mars.

Thinking of this, Lu Zhou somehow suddenly remembered what the observer said to himself, and a trace of thoughtful and terrifying thoughts inexplicably rose in his heart.

Everything is unlikely to be arranged for the best.

But maybe......

It is really possible that this solar system was "designed......

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