REAL LIFE NEWS: GROWING VEGETABLES ON MARS
by Hazed
In the excellent film The Martian (which should have won as Oscar), an astronaut stranded on Mars has to grow potatoes using his own waste as a fertilizer in order to survive. Now researchers on Earth have experimented to see how easy it would be to grow vegetables on the red planet.
A team in the Netherlands have taken simulated Martian soil from NASA and have planted a variety of crops: tomatoes, peas, rye, rocket, radish and cress. Now it’s harvest time and the yields have been much higher than expected, and comparable to those grown in ordinary potting compost.
The lead scientist, Dr Wieger Wamelink, from Wageningen University, said: “That was a real surprise to us. It shows that the Mars soil simulant has great potential when properly prepared and watered.”
Good news for those planning future missions to Mars, who would like a diet a little more varied than poo-potatoes.
