Growing Plants On Mars: Fundamental Problems And Potential Solutions
Introductıon
For the last 70 years scientists and engineers have dreamed of going to Mars and now NASA has recently announced plans to send a manned mission to Mars by 2030. In NASA’s journey to Mars (2015), NASA argues that if a success, this mission will a basis of an even deeper exploration. Since NASA’s goal is not to achieve a single destination, astronauts on Mars as well as their explorer robots will strive to better understand the potential of life beyond earth and to find a habitable place where humans can work, operate, learn, and prosper afar from Earth within an enlarged scope of time.
Hawking S. (2008) warns that, if the human race is to perpetuate for more centuries, we will have to go to a previously unexplored planet. People have been investigating Mars for 40 years and now there are two choices: to settle on Mars or to visit Mars. In the Mars one project developed by a Dutch entrepreneur Bas Lansdorp, the humans will settle on Mars In NASA's Orion project, astronauts will go to Mars and return after 6 to 18 months. As of September 2014 there have been 40 missions to Mars, including orbiters, landers and rovers but only 18 missions to Mars have been successful. This article explains the fundamental problems and potential solutions for growing edible plant life on Mars.
Situation
Research has shown that Mars does not have long periods of sun light which plants require to survive and the temperatures can plummet to minus 195 degrees F in the winter, summer temperatures can reach 70 degrees F near the equator. Also the atmosphere on Mars is 95% carbon dioxide and only 0. 146% oxygen so the idea of growing plant life outside is completely out of the question as they would not survive so how do we achieve this? Currently the most important issue is the length of time it takes to travel to Mars, between 150 and 300 days, the speed required and the amount of fuel to be used and the survival of the travellers. According to the Mars one article when the astronauts land on Mars there will be storable food from Earth waiting for them which will only serve as emergency rations. Which means they will have eat as much fresh food that they produce. Paragon’s Conceptual Design Study has identified a promising ECLSS architecture with local resources supplying all the consumable needs of the Mars One outpost. Further design studies will require a particular focus on the ECLSS mass, as the estimated payload mass of each ECLSS module (~7500 kg) is greater than initially envisioned. Mars One anticipates working with Lockheed Martin on a scaled up landing system, with improvements in the ECLSS design being driven by the landing system’s upper mass limit. It was also identified that the ECLSS would receive insufficient power during the shortest day of the Martian year. Therefore a trade-off analysis is required to determine whether increasing the solar array size or increasing the air storage tank capacity is the most efficient solution.
Finally, it is expected that many of the ECLSS components could be manufactured via 3D printing, potentially reducing long-term resupply costs ProblemPerhaps one of the most important problems living on Mars is provisions and how to store food and where the source of water.
Under normal conditions, plants do not grow everywhere on Earth they all have different characteristics and require different environments for example, crops that can be grown can vary in size and yield due to weather conditions and soil characteristics. This will be a major problem, as climate and soil conditions are different on Mars. Will we be able to harvest crops all year round? Can we mimic the growing conditions for plants as they grow on Earth? Will the food be edible, will they be able to obtain food at all using growing techniques and crops adapted to our planet? Even a small team of 4 people cannot bring all the food they will eat for 3 years from Earth. In addition, we know that it would be much healthier to eat fresh fruit and vegetables instead of ready-to-eat foods. Problems is our technology and engineering, depending on the time of the total journey from Earth to Mars, the speed of launching, the alignment of Earth and Mars and the time of travel required to reach the goal of the space vehicle. Although the main factor outside them is that we are fast enough to travel around the world, research is still being carried out with regard to travel to Mars. As a matter of fact, the technology of the space ship is among the factors that influence transportation of food or production as if the ship is faster and has power to carry large amounts of cargo food can be transported rapidly from earth and in high quantities.
Though advanced rocket technology might a great boost to the provisions issue still food that travelled billions of miles across the solar system with intense radiations cannot be the ideal meal for someone stranded years of travel away from home. Besides from the transportation issues, it logical that we might opt for the other obvious solution which is to grow crops on mars ourselves but still, I said before mars has limited sunlight and as we plants require sunlight for photosynthesis but this could be solved but artificial sunlight lamps but there is another rather serious constraint which is the toxicity of the Martian soil, so this too needs to be taken into account whilst finding feasible solutions the food problem in the Mars mission.
Solutions
Problem – Growing plants on Mars
One solution to this could be to overcome this by the research that has been conducted by scientists in Peru in 2016 they have built a simulator that mimics the harsh conditions of the soil on Mars and have successfully grown a small potato plant. They will also be building a further 3 simulators to grow more potato plants under the extreme conditions with the hope of gaining a broader range of results. The scientists have only used Mars equivalent soil, it did produce slightly fewer crops than if grown in soil on Earth but there was not a huge difference which suggests that in right conditions we could grow crops on Mars in a greenhouse type of environment.
Problem – Would the food grown of Mars be edible?
According to research carried out by scientists at Wagenlingen university in the Netherlands have also grown vegetables in recreated Martian soil and they have concluded that food was safe to eat by humans.
Problem – Water on Mars
Water can be extracted from the soil on Mars using the life support units these units will heat the soil until the water evaporates, then the evaporated water would be stored in each life support unit. Also around 1500 liters of reserve water will be stored in each unit. Since Mars has gravity, water can be used in the same way as used on Earth and the water will be recycled which takes less energy than extracting the water from the Martian soil. Only water that cannot be recycled will be replaced by water extracted from the soil.
Evaluation of the solutions It will not be natural to grow plants on Mars, and, for this reason, it will be absolutely necessary to play with the genetics of the plants. Though it is of paramount importance to genetically modify crops to increase their compatibility with the Martian environment we must not ignore the damage of plants when changing their genetics, as sometimes the nutrients level in that kind of crop may be reduced.
If we want to live somewhere else in the solar system or even across the galaxy is of paramount importance that we first find a to grow foods like vegetables and fruits in spaces. It must be noted that if NASA succeeds in growing plants in space, it will satisfy both astronauts who want fresh vegetables, and the entire humanity as this mission is in our best interest and if the astronauts are starving in space the mission will apparently be a total failure. In addition to grown food feeding astronauts it will also help filter the atmosphere of mars, as mars needs carbon dioxide to restore itself as by heating the atmosphere water frozen beneath the ground would reappear above the surface hence, hitting two birds with one stone. It appears that there are many more years ahead for the optimization of crop growth techniques in space and advanced travel means to Mars, but who knows, science is not really a mystery to humans, and numerous corporations are interested in space exploration, means might be found sooner than we anticipated.
Conclusion
We will use the plants we grow on Mars not only for nutrition, but also as a source of chemicals and drugs. Especially since greenhouses on Mars need to have plenty of light, it will not be possible for people working in greenhouses to live permanently underground but will in enclosed shells. Plants grown on Mars will be ideally be used to produce drugs “You will need to grow everything. Aloe Vera and other plants will be an integral part of your permanent garden of Mars. Any plant production surplus will be stored as emergency rations for the second crew and for emergencies. Non-edible parts of the plants will be recycled or stored until more advanced recycling equipment is shipped from Earth.
Mars One will investigate the volume requirements for food production in the simulation outpost and the crews will be trained for many years to operate the greenhouse equipment. The aim is for colony to be independent from the food they receive from Earth. There will always be enough emergency rations in storage, locally produced or from Earth, to survive until the next supply mission comes.
