Growing potatoes on Mars

[Becky]

Anyone read or seen The Martian?! A team of researchers at the International Potato Centre in Peru have tested to see whether potatoes could be grown on Mars, by attempting to grow them in a hermetically sealed container that mimics the conditions there.

The CubeSat houses a container holding soil and the tuber. Inside this hermetically sealed environment the CubeSat delivers nutrient rich water, controls the temperature for Mars day and night conditions and mimics Mars air pressure, oxygen and carbon dioxide levels. Sensors constantly monitor these conditions and live streaming cameras record the soil in anticipation of the potato sprouting.

And the good news is... they sprouted!

You can read more about it here: http://cipotato.org/press_release/indicators-show-potatoes-can-grow-mars/

 

[Rajesh Sethi]

I like Mars but too many problems.
Problems they will face on Mars are
1)soil acidic
2)no water(polar underground water will require lot of energy to extract.)
3) low atmospheric pressure, water will vaporize instantly.
4)low/ no nitrogen content in atm as well as soil.
5)tornadoes called dust devil, make it difficult to construct any thing on surface ..etc

will make almost impossible to grow or colonize Mars.

 

[zigs]

There won't be any going outside on mars, but its not impossible. We can live at the poles here, and food is being grown in old world war 2 bomb shelters in london.

Be interesting to see what we make of the 15 mile long alien space ship parked in orbit around the planet though

 

[Becky]

I think it will be a long time before life becomes sustainable on Mars, but with work I believe it could happen.

However, projects such as this aren't done for the sole purpose of attaining that goal, they are done because the research helps us create crops that can survive harsh conditions here on Earth

 

[Rajesh Sethi]

I like the idea of ecoshere, some years back there was a craze about an old geezer (David Latimer) who designed a big glass bottle and life sustained (spiderworts) in it for some 40 years without add water or fertilizer.