NASA has plans to send people to Mars in the 1930s, but do not expect Red Planet visitors to portray the landscape of this rock with fresh products in the same way that astronaut and botanist Mark Watney did in The Martian.
(Alerting to the burning of the film's events) when they were interrupted by Matt-Dimon on Mars, planting potatoes in an agricultural greenhouse using Mars soil and its metabolic wastes. His plan was successful: he was able to survive for more than a year living on potatoes largely.
US Researchers taking a shot at a potential 'space ranch'. Chinese authorities state they have built up a 300m lodge fit for developing vegetables on the moon or Mars
According to Paul Sokolow, a plant scientist at the Canadian Museum of Nature, although the movie Martian, food will not be grown on Mars just as it was shown on the big screen. It will take hundreds of years before the Red Planet is planted without protective greenhouses.
Challenges of Mars Agriculture:
Mars soil is free of nutrients in the earth's soil, which is also soft, which means the possibility of water leakage of them much faster than the earth's soil. Sokolov, who was a member of the team last year at the Mars Desert Research Station in Huntsville, Utah, said the use of human excrement (feces) or other fertilizers could provide a quick boost of nutrients, such as nitrogen, Soil texture holds water longer.
Soil on Earth gets nitrogen from the atmosphere, although the nitrogen found in the atmosphere is not easy for plants to use. The bacteria adjust nitrogen to turn it into a better food for plants.
On the planet, large quantities of nitrogen in the soil are suitable for bacteria found in the roots of different plants, such as legumes. Sokolov added to live science: "You may want a long-term way to fix nitrogen in the soil there."
Sokolov said the soil of Mars contains bad chemicals called perchlorates, which must be chemically removed so plants grow there. Then there is gravity, as Mars has about a third of the Earth's gravity. Although experiments have shown that some plants can grow relatively naturally in low gravity at the ISS, there is no way to simulate the gravity of the red planet.
Sokolov added that plants use gravity as a way to orient themselves, so some plant species may be intertwined or uncoordinated. "For example, the treated willow seedlings grew in the ISS because they did not develop their direction - the root release axis - in low gravity," Sokolov said.
A study in 2014 in Plos one in a simulation of the Martian soil for 50 days showed that tomato, wheat, mustard, and grass leafs grew clearly well, even flowering and productive seeds, without any fertilizer. In fact, these highly endemic plants have grown better in the soil of Mars than in poor river soil nutrients from the earth.
To determine which nutrients to actually bring to Mars, scientists must balance tradeoffs between the food density of the crop, the resources to grow and the time of germination, Sokolov said. Scientists may plant lettuce in the ISS as evidence, but humans can not live on lettuce alone.
Instead, people suggested crops such as horseradish and strawberries as the best snacks for Mars. Sokolov pointed out that the numbers experts have determined that it may actually require less fuel to send only ready-made foods instead of agriculture components, for short-term initial visits.
Simulation of Mars conditions:Before starting the Mars Farming Project, humans need to learn more about how plants grow. This is part of the logic behind Mars simulations as in the Mars Desert Research Station.
Scientists there have grown everything from native desert plants to barley and dinar in a simulated Mars soil at the station. The so-called "Simulant I" soil is obtained by using dirt rocks and soil - according to samples from Mars soil - from the fall of the Viking vehicle dating back to the 1970s.
Researchers at the University of Guelph in Canada are planting plants in low-pressure or high-pressure chambers in simulating the thin atmosphere of Mars. The team presents plants for a range of harsh conditions - including varying levels of carbon dioxide, pressure, heat, light, nutrition and humidity - to see plants that are sufficiently strong to survive in Mars conditions outside the independent, airborne greenhouse.
Greening the Red Planet? :
Sokolov said that planting plants in the components of Mars rather than in a greenhouse controlled by temperature and air would be more difficult. Some people said we should make Mars like Earth, and Sokolov replied that this is not something that should be taken seriously. It's definitely in the science fiction world.
Image credits: Nasa
To shape this atmosphere, explorers need to plant Mars soil full of oxygen-producing blue bacteria, lichens and microbes. It will take hundreds of years to produce enough oxygen and nitrogen for the atmosphere. Sokolov added that this is not a very bad result, since it took hundreds of millions of years to stabilize oxygen levels in the earth. People can eat blue bacteria in the meantime, although microorganisms are not tasty for them.
He added that while microbes would be busy forming this atmosphere, the solar wind will move it constantly, because Mars lacks a magnetic envelope; a magnetic field to protect the planet from solar radiation.
"Even if people can figure out how to generate the atmosphere faster than their dispersion, the Martian winter can be chilling-207 degrees Fahrenheit (-133 degrees Celsius)," he said. "People can design an atmosphere of greenhouse gases that heat the heat, but Mars is far from the sun, so it's probably cooler than our planet on average."
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