Khuld Labs

To establish sustainable human colonies on Mars, closed-loop life support systems capable of producing food, oxygen, and recycling nutrients under extreme extraterrestrial stresses must be established. We propose a metagenomic-guided strategy to harness indigenous plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) for the development of robust microbial consortia designed to support Martian agriculture. Using 16S rRNA sequencing and shotgun metagenomics, Rhizosphere soil communities from strawberry and lettuce will be profiled to identify beneficial taxa with nitrogen fixation, phosphorus solubilization, phytohormone production, and biocontrol functions. These microbial consortia will be evaluated for survival and adaptation in Mars Global Simulant (MGS-1) under simulated space stresses. Post-stress metagenomic analysis will identify stress-tolerant PGPR, which will then be tested for their capacity to promote plant growth in strawberry and lettuce seedlings. This research fills critical knowledge gaps in understanding how rhizosphere bacteria function in Mars-like environments and advances the design of synthetic microbial consortia for extraterrestrial agriculture. Beyond space applications, identified stress-tolerant PGPR and potential genetic engineering strategies hold promise for advancing sustainable agriculture in terrestrial degraded soils and climate-stressed environments.