At an understated meeting called the "Astrobiology Science Conference" in April 2010, there were a number of talks about growing bacteria in model extraterrestrial environments. Would have been very interesting to see.
Here's a link to the morning session on the 27th, SURVIVAL, GROWTH, AND EVOLUTION OF MICRORGANISMS IN MODEL EXTRATERRESTRIAL ENVIRONMENTS, and one particularly simple and interesting experiment, DIRECTED EVOLUTION OF BACILLUS SUBTILIS TOWARDS HYPOBARIC GROWTH.
In this day and age of genetic engineering, perhaps we can set about terraforming our "dead" neighbor planets into places habitable.
