Packing E.coli on a trip to Mars could be the best way for humans to survive on the Red Planet.

Initial feasibility studies suggest Mars colonists could use “living” self-healing materials to build habitats, make them air-tight with rubber grown by cells and power them with batteries made of bacteria.

Lynn Rothschild at the NASA Ames Research Center thinks synthetic biology is the key to exploring and colonising other planets like Mars . It could allow key materials and even machinery to be grown locally rather than brought all the way …