Sure everyone knows that Charles Darwin came up with the Theory of Evolution, but did you know that he was also one of the world’s first terraformers? That’s right, Darwin helped create one of the first self-sustaining ecosystems…and he did it on a barren island in the 1800′s.

Ascension Island is a tiny, volcanic speck stuck between South America and Africa and in the 1800′s, it was completely lifeless, with no trees and very little fresh water. (It was also a British military base intended to keep an eye on Napoleon, who was exiled on the nearby island of St. Helena.) Darwin visited the island during his historic voyage on the HMS Beagle, and several years afterwards, encouraged his friend, botanist Joseph Hooker, to develop a plan to forest Ascension with trees from England. And by England, we mean English gardens, which had trees from all over the world, including bamboo, Eucalyptus and Banana.

Today, Ascension Island is a lush oasis, as the hodgepodge of trees that never lived together before co-exist and suck moisture from the sea. It’s the first ever self-sustaining artificial ecosystem (Suck it, Biodome 2!), but few people have heard of it, including the scientists who should be learning from it.

BBC News recently interviewed Dr. Dave Wilkinson of Liverpool Johns Moores University, who has written extensively about the strange hodgepodge ecosystem that’s been created on the island and feels that it could tell us a lot about how a similar environment could be created artificially in space or on another planet.

“What it tells us is that we can build a fully functioning ecosystem through a series of chance accidents or trial and error.” He later added, “It’s a terrible waste that no-one is studying it,”

[BBC NEWS]

If you think about it, there’s a lot unexplained in the original Alien. You don’t know where the Alien comes from, what that giant-elephant-looking “Space Jockey” is or even why no one’s porking underwear-clad Sigourney Weaver. You don’t know anything.

Which explains why Ridley Scott is now going to do two prequels to Alien to further explain the history of aliens and that space jockey. Ridley did a Q&A at the Los Angeles Times’ Hero Complex film festival (between screenings of Alien and Blade Runner) and talked about the films and the space jockey, saying:

“What we want to do is try and squeeze in two prequels, because if you explain who he was and where did he come from, then that will deal with the savagery of this version, which is pretty savage,” Scott continued. “Then you may want to find out where they came from, so you may want to go to the place where his people come from.”

Apparently, the films will largely be about… terraforming.

“This is going to go further into that world of terraforming,” Scott said. “We’re thinking about doing it. In fact, if Kennedy had been allowed to continue on his space program, we would have probably been on Mars now, with maybe a population of about 9,000 people. Take that on board, that’s how far we should have gone and should have come. The argument was always ‘Why spend so much money out there when we’ve got enough problems down here?’ That’s what’s turned it around and stopped it. So we’re going to a world which is already out there.”

Oh, and if you want a bit more info on that Space Jockey, Ridley added:

“I think beneath that carcass isn’t a carcass. That’s a suit, but inside the suit is a being.”

So, he’s probably not really an elephant-looking guy, after all.

[SciFi Wire]