IPFS News Link • Agriculture
Growing greens on the Red Planet
• http://www.gizmag.com, By David SzondyThat may seem more than a bit mad, but its part of an experiment to see if crops can grow in the Martian environment as a prelude to colonization.
If Mars is ever going to be colonized, the pioneers are going to have to learn to live off the land. Shipping food, water, air, spare parts, and the other necessities of life would be insanely expensive, and a completely self-contained habitat, even if feasible, misses the point of colonization and might as well be built in the Gobi Desert or Antarctica. A truly success colony will need, for example, to use the Martian air and the Martian sunlight to grow crops.
Developed by a team of under and postgraduate students as part of an international competition sponsored by the Mars One group, the Southampton #LettuceOnMars experiment consists of a small greenhouse that will be able to grow lettuces using the atmosphere and sunlight on Mars. The goal is to demonstrate that it is feasible to grow crops on Mars with an open-ended technology that uses Martian resources rather than the closed systems used in gardening experiments on the International Space Station or relying on materials sent from Earth.
Watch Streaming Broadcast Live:
LRN.fm
DLive
Telegram
3 Comments in Response to Growing greens on the Red Planet
What is the significance of this? It would actually rebuild the credibility of science somewhat. Since science has always looked for life off-planet without finding it, their credibility has been waning. Scientists would now have an excuse to keep on stating that it must (might?) be there. After all, we haven't conclusively proven that it isn't, by looking at Mars. So, the continual failure of science would be slowed down somewhat, in the eyes of the people.
One of the things that is important to look at in this article is the sentence, "Shipping food, water, air, spare parts, and the other necessities of life would be insanely expensive, and a completely self-contained habitat, even if feasible, misses the point of colonization and might as well be built in the Gobi Desert or Antarctica." Why is this important? It shows us how weak people are with regard to nature.
Look at all of nature on planet Earth. People have been able to thrive and increase in numbers, even in the face of entropy, and a natural reduction in the number of different species of life still alive - as evidenced by the fossil record. Yet even the success of humankind to build and live in indefinitely, self contained ecologically systems, has not been done conclusively, for extended periods of time. It seems that we MUST still depend on the earth for its secret methods for sustaining life. Why are we so weak?
It's been recently reported that the atmosphere on Venus has a very high of concentration of co2. If true, why not spread a few billion seeds from Earth's most prolific plant life? If they germinate and grow it may make the environment more compatible to humans.
The dust storms can block out a lot more than a few days.
There is about 20 minutes longer light exposure (day).
The tilt of Mars is about the same as Earth and the seasons are twice as long. Growing can take place twice as long with preservation (no bacteria, freezing, little oxygen or atmosphere) to tide one over during the long winter and storms.
But since I do not see anything about them actually using the soil of Mars in the test this experiment is a waste as the atmosphere of Mars is well studied. This experiment can be simulated accurately on Earth. No need for a trip. Unless they use the soil (which is not so well known) of Mars say with a 50% mix of organics, it seems rather useless to me.
It would be more productive to start breading crops adapted to lesser light conditions, and the compressed atmosphere of Mars. Using approximations of Martian soil. While broad leafed crops that can do better in reduced light (like lettuce) is a good starting place. I would not limit it to any crops. Oxygen will be a net waste product of this experiment. Eventually supplementing soil with human and animal feces and urine, watering with greywater along with developing decomposers and detrivors as would happen in a thriving colony.