Green Plants for Mars Mission

An anonymous reader writes "NASA doesn't keep back that they are going to send a human expedition to Mars in a couple of decades. One of the obstacles for the longstanding 35-million-mile voyage is a food production. NASA researchers have focused on 20 plant species that NASA believes could be grown during a flight to Mars and after landing on the fourth planet from the Sun. By far not all of them are suitable for space expedition."

Comments

Re:Where's the device that speeds and slows the

[chris mazuc]

Actually, smoking in such a limited atmosphere might overload the air handlers. Brownies would probably be a much better idea.

Re:summary=story

[Anonymous Coward]

parent is insightful. the linked article provides little information. all that i could find is an article mentioning radishes, green onions, and lettuce as possible candidate species.

A-Day

the list

[r00t]

zucchini
garlic
kudzu
black beans
trumpet vine
sweet potato
bamboo
red beans
spider plant
black-eye beans
redwood
dill
onion
mustard
catnip
fava beans
stinging nettle
cabbage
thistle
dandilion

Re:the list

[gobbo]

If that list is bona fide, I'm surprised soy beans aren't on it.

I'm not. Fava is also a short bushing bean--so it fits the same stacking profile for access to light--and just as versatile with less processing required. Soy is good for large harvesting machines, which has something to do with its ubiquity--it's tied to a large industrial system. Simply boiled fava beans taste better than soy prepared the same way. They have similar nutritious characteristics. Less processing=better nutrition, better energy consumption. Give me a fava plant in the garden over soy any day.

Re:Closed System test run

[Richard_at_work]

Biosphere 2 was a technical failure. THey had to pump extra oxygen into the system after it was discovered that the extinction rate within the dome was a lot higher than expected. Something like 70% of all species put into the system to begin with died out within the life of the experiment.

Re:QT: Anyone have one of those "biosphere" globes

[azadam]

Yeah, if you've got a Brookstone near you, they carry them... or search the site for "ecosphere"...

http://www.brookstone.com/

Re:Efficient?

[Coryoth]

Well, it doesn't taste that bad, if you're eating spirulina, considering how damn good it is for you in the right dosages. Sounds sensible to me. I tease my significant other for drinking "pond scum" in her orange juice, but she doesn't mind the taste at all.

Spirulina does actually taste rather unpleasant. That's why they mix it with orange huice instead of, say, water. Mixed with orange juice I agree, it's really not bad at all, but on its own it really is surprisingly unpleasant.

Jedidiah.

Re:Closed System test run

[Richard_at_work]

Theres a NASA program going on at the moment with 12 crew, except this time they are relying on a lot less natural, and going more for mechanical, with a large hydroponics area for food and some oxygen. I think this approach is better for the journey rather than something like Biosphere 2 :)

Re:Plants on Mars itself?

[heli0]

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/TECH/space/06/04/mars .jellyplants/

Terrestrial scientists planning to sprout genetically altered weeds on Mars hope to take part in a $300 million mission to the red planet that could pave the way for human colonization.

"It will be a symbolic step of life from Earth, leaving Earth, and growing somewhere else," said Chris McKay, a NASA scientist involved in Mars missions.

"I have no doubt that we can get plants to survive on Mars," said Rob Ferl, a University of Florida scientist who is trying to reserve a spot for the experiment on the proposed 2007 mission.

A common weed along roadsides and trails, the Arabidopsis plant was selected for the project because of its short life cycle, about 5 weeks, its diminutive size, about 7 inches, and because its entire genetic structure has been mapped and sequenced.

If the lowly weed succeeds in its lofty task, the researchers hope it sparks more scientific interest in the possibility of "terraforming" Mars, or engineering its ecosystems to make them more suitable for Earth life.

Such tinkering would likely be required to produce oxygen, food and water for human transplants, as the cost of sending such essentials from Earth would be prohibitive.

"I have no doubt what we can get plants to survive on Mars. When we do, we will have shown that Earth-evolved life is capable of thriving in distant worlds, and we will have set the stage for human colonization," Ferl said.

More information

[4-D4Y]

i couldn't find anything on pressure thresholds, but there is an article talking about how turgor pressure effects plant growth. turgor is a biology term that princeton defines better than i do. i'd imagine that the turgor pressure corresponds to atmospheric pressure in slightly different ratios species-to-species... The article also talks about yield threshold, which i think is just the output of good crop. here is more info on what plants NASA wants to grow for their astronauts ( wheat, rice, lettuce, cabbage, soy, potatoes, and others ) and some issues that they are facing ( one article mentions nuts and fruits are difficult ). too bad NASA is really buries their information...