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

summary=story

[Emugamer]

wow that is such a fluff piece, it says that the actual information will be released later on, it doesn't mention the species of plants looked at, it doesn't explain much other then they look at byproducts and that they want to help the crew survive... :) where is the geeky stuff?

Re:summary=story

[demachina]

An empty fluff piece is kind of a metaphor for NASA's manned space program these days. They spend lots of money on make work programs, research lots of things, many trivial like this, none of which seem to involve bending metal, putting humans into space or sending them back to the moon or on to mars. Its really turned in to a high tech welfare system and jobs program. They've become so obsessed with making space flight safe they won't fly until its safe. Since they can't make it safe they don't fly but they keep spending money just as they were and waste time and money on the ground like this.

I really wish they'd just shut it down and give all the money to Burt Rutan in no strings attached grants.

The Discover channel has been running a great multi part documentary on Burt's team, "Black Sky: The Race For Space". The thing that really impresses you is the fact they still have lots of emotion about their endeavors and are clearly a no nonsense, seat of the pants, group of engineers and pilots doing thing they believe in, and doing it on a shoestring.

Burt has lots of CAD drawings and sketches for his concept of an entire private space program including orbital vehicles, space stations and vehicles to get out of LEO. He really reminds me a lot of Kelly Johnson the genius behind the Lockheed Skunk Works, the SR-71 etc.

If he had a fraction of the money NASA is wasting year in year out on its manned space program, and not even launching anything, he could build a space program that would capture people's, especially young people's, imagination again like Apollo did.

Re:summary=story

[CRC'99]

Since they can't make it safe they don't fly but they keep spending money just as they were and waste time and money on the ground like this.

Yeah, because it's so much better to send people on long space missions with snack packs and museli bars as their only source of food.

The trip will be that long, that they're going to need to replenish their food supplies somehow - or else they'll be taking two craft, one for the people, one for the food.

I wonder...

[Pig Hogger]

I wonder if someone will smuggle pot seeds onboard...

Re:I wonder...

[gobbo]

You can eat it too. Also, all the generations and careful breeding practices would make it ideal for indoor hydroponic growing in spaceships/domes etc. But does it produce worthwhile atmospheric regulation per foot compared to the candidates they are now studying?

Guess you've never seen or smelled it growing over time. It is a very fast growing plant (especially the far northern varieties) that rather obviously affects the air, far more than any other greenhouse plant I've seen, not just in pungent aroma. (Hey, I used to live in BC, and know plenty of farmers of various specialties, including industrial hemp, ahem.)

The seed is very high in proteins, tasty and nutty--you can buy these at some health food stores as nut butters etc. (local restrictions may apply!). The varieties grown as food/air/fibre crops are not THC laden and some are very short, like their sister varieties grown for stealth hydroponic operations. So despite political opposition to the plant, and the resulting unlikeliness of adequate research on its atmospheric regulation abilities, it isn't such a far-fetched idea.

Efficient?

[MrDickey]

It seems to me that taking the lamps, dirt, and space needed for the plants to grow would be less efficient than simply filling the space with canned food. I suppose it depends on the time they are taking; I wonder how many growing seasons they will have on the way to mars.

Re:Efficient?

[tylernt]

"the lamps, dirt, and space needed for the plants to grow would be less efficient"

I'm inclined to agree, for a short mission. Except, they don't need to stock enough soil/nutrients/water etc for 5 years, because they can use and re-use the water and uh, human waste, over and over again, resulting in a semi-closed loop. Depending on how closed the loop is and how long they're out, there is some point where this becomes more efficient. I guess they've done the math.

Re:Efficient?

[gobbo]

Maybe they'll use algae, which is a plant.

And it tastes oh so good!

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.

Re:What is the point of going to mars?

[norkakn]

I vote that we fix SS, healthcare for all, edcation for all AND mars.

We just have to stop bombing so many people to pay for it.

Re:What is the point of going to mars?

[patdabiker]

Yes, abandon all work towards the future until we can handle the present. Society has gotten to where we are today by continually looking towards the future. Plus, solutions NASA develops frequently benefit the general public in unexpected ways.

No meat!

[dapyx]

It requires by far more energy to make meat than to make vegetables.

So, they'll have only vegeterians in the space crews. :-)

Genetically modded?

[Lord_Dweomer]

Would this be a good opportunity to use genetically modified plants? Perhaps ones that produce food quicker, or that live longer or that eat up more C02 and produce more 02?

Re:Genetically modded?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does everyone expect thet GE can solve everything? I myself graduated in plantbiotechnology this year and we discussed some of these things in class.

Quicker production of food: You would need plants with a larger leaf-index for this to happen. As "quicker" and "larger" are hard to quantify in organisms, it's even harder to know which genes would be involved in the process. Conventional breeding is atm still the best way to get better producing plants, but that takes decades. Perhaps over a few decades this will change, when they have found some genes that are involved in the process.

More CO2 uptake/O2 production: Both are the results of photosyntheses. Photosyntheses is the result of ages of evolution and is therefor already optimized as far as it would be possible.

I think the NASA people should go with fungi and bacteria. They are easier and faster to grow and take less room.

Sadly, I think that you are getting your wish

[WindBourne]

Look, every society that looks inwards ends up decaying. There are no solutions for all of societies ills. It is the reason why Communism will never work. Mankind is its own worse enemy. By looking outwards and expanding to the stars, we will increase economically as well as improve our own conditions. Think about when America prospered. Our greatest times where probably during the late 50's until late 60's. A big part of that was doing things such NASA, but in the right way. Now, NASA is just a tool that is being bantered about by politicians to be used to improve their own voting records, but not necessarily the USA.

Bush's ideas of not shooting for Mars, but going to the moon, all but guarentees that we will have enormous costs for a long time. The moon has no real resources. But even if Kerry gets in, I think that we are still in trouble. Our best chance at this is the X-Prize being moved into y-prize and z-prize, etc. With Paul Allens interest in the future, he is funding a number of space related things as well. I suspect that he will be able to get some commercially viable companies on to new ground. Literally. In fact, if the private Russia trip really is shooting for Mars happens, I think that it probably has Allen's backing.

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

[thorndt]

OK, call me ignorant, but... You can actually get high by EATING weed?

Re:I think they should stop ...

[C60]

Even though the article was lacking in what anyone could consider detail, hell I would even hesitate to call it an article, one of the points in this research is for the recycling of oxygen and water, its not just about food.

Plants do an incredible job of purifying and recycling both air and water, and because of the growth rate and adaptability of many plants I think their problem will actually be in stemming the tide of mutation. Life evolves to fill whichever niche it can. And plants do it very very rapidly.

In fact, I'm willing to bet that out of the 3 choices, using the plants as a food source will be the last thing they do. They're much more valuable generating oxygen, as they do that through their entire lifespan, and are generally only suitable for eating near the end of their lifespan. It's much easier to tweak the size of your algea garden to produce more oxygen than it is to order new parts from home when you're several million km away from the nearest UPS store.

Re:Canabis could be ...

[Salsaman]

Actually, hemp (the plant) would probably be a good choice. It produces more biomass (i.e usable, processable, stuff) for the same amount of sunlight than any other plant, and thus will readily produce oxygen from carbon dioxide. The oil is very high in many nutrients and can be burned for fuel, and the processed fibers can be used for construction (if compressed) and for clothing.

The only problem is society's taboo with this particular plant. If that could be overcome, then I would imagine hemp, seaweed and algae would be good choices to take as plants.

Re:Closed System test run

[JabberWokky]

Documented technical failures are scientific successes. Of course, I have no idea how well Biosphere 2 was run as a scientific experiment, but the fact that it failed could have provided loads of scientific information.

--
Evan "Difference between science and engineering"