Someday , perhaps not too far in the distant time to come ifElon Musk sire his way , there will be homo on Mars . Although we can take resources with us , it will be far more sensitive in the long run to grow our own harvest there . AlthoughThe Martianmakes it seem almost easy to do this , the world is that very few experimentation in this respect have beenconducted in real sprightliness .
fortuitously , Dutch scientists this week have announced that four assortment of vegetable and cereal develop on filth very similar to that found on the Red Planet have been found safe to eat . radish , pea plant , rye , and tomatoes were find to hold no dangerous levels of large metals – such as steer , copper , and atomic number 48 – which can be harmful to human health .
“ These remarkable solvent are very promising , ” allege the project ’s senior ecologist Wieger Wamelink , a researcher at the Wageningen University in the Netherlands , as report by theGuardian . “ It ’s significant to quiz as many crops as potential , to ensure that settler on Mars have access to a unspecific miscellanea of unlike food for thought source . ”
Since 2013 , the university has managed to raise 10 dissimilar crops on simulated Martian soil , but some of them may still be unsafe to ware . Further psychometric test are being acquit on these extra crops – which include Irish potato , garden garden rocket , and water cress plant – to make certain they also do not preferentially absorb any dangerous heavy metallic element .
try out if crops can be grown on Martian stain is just one part of a huge effort to interpret whether or not agriculture on Mars is currently plausible . In the long terminus , it has been evoke that geoengineers could lead up a global warming program on the surface , which will place to warm the atmospheric state , melt the ice caps , and perhaps inundation section of the planet with a mixture of fresh and fairly briny weewee .
Even in the inadequate full term , though , a lot of piss will still involve to be produced on situation in social club to keep the crops satiated . There are several way to do this on a modest musical scale , but it ’s most probable that the first manned missions to Mars will play the water with them on cargo shuttle . Either that , or they can dredge up ice from the caps or the subsurface reservoirs to keep them going for a while .
