Gardening On Mars

Calopteryx writes "Following Obama's announcement of the intention to send humans to Mars by the mid-2030s, New Scientist reports on plans to piece together the elements of a starter kit for the first colonists of the Red Planet: 'The creation of a human outpost on Mars is still some way off, but that hasn't stopped us planning the garden.'"

Comments

And

[Dunbal]

Tilapia nilotica will probably be the first interplanetary fish.

Re:And

[CannonballHead]

continued survival of the worlds vegan population indicates that there are no major health problems with such a diet.

Don't you have to take supplements to make up for things missing in the vegan diet? I have read this several times in nutrition books, based on studies. And some of them were major health problems, depending on which supplement was not taken... especially for pregnancy.

Re:And

[Lunix Nutcase]

and the continued survival of the worlds vegan population indicates that there are no major health problems with such a diet.

And they only do so from being able to take supplements for things they can't get reliably get from plant sources such as B12. One couple got a life sentence because a vegan diet they imposed on their baby ended up killing it due to their ignorance on such nutritional deficiencies that can happen from such a lifestyle.

Re:And

[Nadaka]

Right. Vegan diets are extremely unhealthy for pregnant women and young children, even leading to miscarriage, disfigurement or death. It is also moderately unhealthy for almost everyone compared to a balanced diet of home made food (meat, dairy, grain, vegetables, fresh if possible, otherwise with as little chemical preservatives as possible). The only thing you can compare a vegan diet to in a positive light is the modern diet of industrially prepared chemically infused meals and fast food.

Re:And

[Lunix Nutcase]

Yes, one would have to. This is why humans have always been omnivores. Even up to a few hundred years ago it would be been completely impractical to be a vegan due to the lack of supplements for essentials vitamins and minerals that one cannot reliably get from plant sources. Vitamin B12 deficiency is one of the leading issues with a poorly planned vegan diet and this vitamin was not even isolated until 1948. Before that point one was given liver extracts to treat things like pernicious anemia which results from B12 deficiency.

Re:And

[elnyka]

Wouldn't it be more efficient to rely on soy for protein? Even the most efficient methods of growing meat are always going to be less efficient than just eating the plants directly, and the continued survival of the worlds vegan population indicates that there are no major health problems with such a diet.

Do you believe in unicorns too?

Re:And

[ChromeAeonium]

If it's protein you're concerned about, I'd say your best bet would be to skip both the animal and plant kingdoms entirely, animals especially would be far too inefficient, and use a spirulina genetically modified to produce all the proteins humans need. It's not that far fetched; there's already soy modified to produces omega-3. It probably wouldn't taste all that good, but since we're talking about being as efficient as possible...well, we aren't going to Mars for the local specialties. Not yet anyway.

Re:And

[crmarvin42]

Soy is an excellent plant source of protein. However, protein is not a single nutrient, but a collection of nutrients known as amino acids. Some amino acids can be synthesized by humans (non-essential or dispensible amino acids), others can be interconverted between each other, and others still have to be consumed intact because humans have innadequate ability to synthesize them (essential or indispensible amino acids). Generally, animal sources of protein have ratios of amino acids more in line with the human requirement (Egg being the gold standard).

one must also consider anti-nutritive factors in soy. Soy is the second most alergenic food to humans, and contains high concetrations of phytic acid. Phytic acid can reduce the digestibility not only of nutrients within the soy plant (P, Ca, Zn, Mn, et al), but also within other foods eaten with the soy.

Also, animal protein sources are much more dense. Fish contain a much higher percent protein in addition to having a better amino acid profile. Humans living on vegan diets usually take amino acid supplements because they cannot physically eat enough soy in a day to meet their dietary requirements for amino acids without feeling like they've eaten too much, if they can consume that much soy at all. A filet of fish goes a longer way toward meeting the nutritional requirement than an identical wieght of soy beans. If you want to isolate soy protein, then you need a lot of specialized equipment and some rather harsh chemicals to extract the protein whereas fish protein is simply extracted by mechanically scaling and gutting the fish.

Any potential Martian colonists will have a diet that bares little resemplence to the average American's diet now, but Veganisms is dependent upon modern infrastructure that would be difficult to replicate on Mars.

Re:And

[CannonballHead]

Soy is the second most alergenic food to humans

My wife is extremely allergic to soy. We have since found out that it is in everything from tea to salad dressing. And soybean oil is common, too, along with sunflower oil - which is also in almost everything... even vitamin E gel things.

You don't need to be allergic to much at all to basically eliminate almost all non-"single" food (i.e., where it's just exactly what it says: like "broccoli" or "beef")... i.e.: if you can't have sugar, dairy, gluten, and soy, it knocks out a whole lot of stuff. Even normal things like chips, tea, etc.

Re:And

[Explodicle]

The American Dietetic Association considers well-planned vegan diets "appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy and lactation," but recommends that vegan mothers supplement for iron, vitamin D, and vitamin B12.

- Veganism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Re:And

[Nadaka]

No, not really. Most people convert to veganism later in life after being omnivores through childhood and young adulthood. Most of them also either choose not to have children or have passed child rearing age when they change their diet as well.

Re:And

[kimvette]

It's also added to milk on occasion, and it's often used as the medium for carrying anatto color. It lurks in shampoos and body washes and so forth. On time I decided to take a bubble bath, was relaxing and within about 20 minutes my whole body started burning (think about the worst sunburn you've had - and imagine that over EVERYWHERE from the neck down - EVERYWHERE). Well I jumped out of the tub and drained it, took a very cold shower and downed some benedryl. Then, I checked the ingredients - sure enough, hydrolized soy protein and vegetable oil. Fun stuff. Soy is everywhere you look, and also everywhere you didn't think to look.

Oh by the way I found the best soy sauce substitute that tastes almost identical to soy sauce; coconut liquid aminos. The stuff is amazing. I just used it for a party this weekend and people could not tell the difference between that and soy sauce. Great stuff.

Re:And

[elrous0]

Sounds delicious.

Re:And

[lemur3]

The American Dietetic Association considers well-planned vegan diets "appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy and lactation," but recommends that vegan mothers supplement for iron, vitamin D, and vitamin B12.

          - Veganism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

that quote is wrong.. just look at the source at the bottom of the wiki page.

Craig, WJ; Mangels, AR; American Dietetic, Association (July 2009). "Position of the American Dietetic Association: vegetarian diets.". J Am Diet Assoc 109 (7): 1266–1282. doi:10.1016/j.jada.2009.05.027. PMID 19562864.

it says VEGETARIAN DIETS. not vegan.

someone is trying to create their own reality.

Re:And

[reverseengineer]

It's not blood that makes red meat red; it's the myoglobin concentration in the muscle, which in turn relates to that muscle's use of oxygen. Meat from adult mammalian tissues on average contains about ten times as much myoglobin as meat from poultry. In poultry, meat can be further differentiated into "light and dark" meat based on what part of the bird it comes from- muscles in the wings, thighs, and legs need more oxygen to sustain activity, have more myoglobin, and are darker- but still have less myoglobin than most beef.

Draining blood out of the meat isn't going to change its color; the myoglobin is within the muscle itself. The color of meat can be affected by the animal's age and diet however: veal, for instance, can be nearly white in color when taken from calves fed only on milk. Myoglobin, like its bloodborne relative hemoglobin, does contain iron, and does represent a major dietary source if you eat red meat.

Re:And

[crmarvin42]

Speaking as one who's masters research was based around phytic acid, your theory doesn't stand up. The problem with phytic acid is that it is not digestible. That means the ingested phytic acid doesn't get absorbed, and is voided in the feces. The anti-nutritive effect of phytic acid is due to it being the principal storage form of Phosphorus in plants (> 75% of Phosphorus in dehulled solvent-extracted soybean meal) and a result of it binding to other nutrients and dragging them out with the feces as well.

My guess (educated, but still a guess) would be that the refusal you experienced is due to high circulating levels of blood urea nitrogen. Amino acids absorbed in excess of what can be used must be degraded. Part of the degradation process results in urea production, and the higher the protein degradation rate the higher the urea synthesis rate. There may be a point at which the liver and kidneys get overtaxed in their effort to synthesize and excrete urea, which in turn could make you feel like your body is telling you "No more!" I don't know of any research along these lines though, so this is pure speculation.

Re:And

[Cyberax]

"It's all about eating blood to get the iron-laden haemoglobin, and red meat is red because it still has blood in it (while white meat is white because the blood has been drained)"

That's fantastically incorrect. "Red meat" is read because of high content of myoglobin ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myoglobin ) - another oxygen-binding protein. It's found in muscle cells which do short bursts of work.

Also, vegan diets ARE possible. Iron is not a problem: http://www.vrg.org/nutrition/iron.htm

So stop spouting nonsense.

Re:And

[elrous0]

Yeah, but they're the biggest assholes in the mammal class.

Re:And

[Explodicle]

Read the source, not just its title. On page 1269 they say the following:

Well-planned vegan, lacto-vegetarian, and lacto-ovo-vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy and lactation. Appropriately planned vegan, lacto-vegetarian, and lacto-ovo-vegetarian diets satisfy nutrient needs of infants, children, and adolescents and promote normal growth (49-51).

(Emphasis mine)

Re:And

[TheNumberless]

that quote is wrong.. just look at the source at the bottom of the wiki page.

That is the title of the cited paper. Often, scholarly papers contain information beyond the content of the title. For example, following the provided link to the article reveals this in the first line of the abstract:

It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases.

someone is trying to create their own reality.

Indeed.

Re:And

[crmarvin42]

AFAIK, the only way that melamine has found its way into milk is through tainted feed purchased from China. I don't know of any reports that Farmers were adulterating their milk with melamine. All the dairy farmers I knew were horrified that melamine was making into their product.

Unless you can provide documentation that a dairy producer was caught intentionally adding melamine to their milk I'll have to accuse you of FUD. Furthermore, if there has been a case that I am unaware of, I'll have to accuse you of extrapolation unless you can provide evidence that it was more than an isolated incident (one farm does not a trend make).

The reason that melamine was being added to feed in China was to increase the Crude Protein value (essentially the Nitrogen concentration, which is high in melamine) and thus the sale price. Farmers in the US bought the high crude protein feed thinking that it was high quality feed. They only later discovered that they had been purchasing poor quality feed containing melamine and were outraged by the deception.

The Nitrogen in melamine is not available as a source of protein, so they were getting less than they paid for, which resulted in them unintentionally feeding their animals protein deficient diets. This kind of nutritional deficiency has all sorts of repercussions as far as animal growth, production, long term viability, etc. that make it unlikely any farmer would intentionally feed melamine tainted feed to their animals.

And in closing, there is only one dairy industry in the US. There are multiple markets to which milk might end up (Fluid milk, cheese, butter, dried milk, etc.), but they all pull from the same pool of milk. I know this because I worked on several dairy's in MA and CT while an undergrad and even visited the Agrimark Balancing Plant in Springfield, MA. It is part of a Regional Co-operative that helps diary farmers efficiently sell their milk to the various end users. Trucks are routed to local plants for bottling, ice cream production, etc. and any milk not sold off goes to a balancing plant. Milk from one dairy might end up in 1 gallon jugs one day, in ice cream the next, and cheese on another.

The Plant in Springfield makes butter and dried milk which both can be stored for extended periods of time. This helps keep the price of milk up (absorbing excess supply in periods of low demand). Not only does the milk from one farm end up in many different products, Many different brands are often manufactured in the same plants. The Springfield plant manufactured butter is sold under every label except Land O'Lakes (or was in 2002) and Land O'Lakes simply uses a different balancing plant somewhere else. It's safe to say that the store brand butter in just about any store in New England came off the same production line as butter sold under any other label (so buy the cheap stuff and save some money).

Why Mars and not the Moon?

[kheldan]

I don't quite understand why it is we're (ostensibly) pushing for Mars now, when we should be working to get back to the Moon first? Wouldn't we gain all sorts of experience and understanding of living on a non-terrestrial world living on the Moon, as well as possibly building infrastructure there to make future missions to Mars and elsewhere easier, amongst a myriad of other things the Moon would be useful for? Or is this just Obama paying lip-service to the idea, knowing that future administrations will likely vote the whole thing down anyway so it doesn't matter?

Re:Why Mars and not the Moon?

[Locke2005]

Why would you want to go to all the trouble and energy of escaping the Earth's gravity well, only to drop back into another gravity well? I say we shoot for the asteroid belt -- it has both the necessary resources and easier access to them. Sure, it lacks gravity, but so does the moon.

Re:Why Mars and not the Moon?

[Skarecrow77]

Actually, Mars and the Moon aren't very similar at all other than the superficial difference of "they're both outside LEO, and neither one has an oxygen atmosphere". You can get better approximation of living and working on Mars in antarctica, or hell even Wyoming, than you can on the Moon.

The moon is absolutely positivly not a prerequsite for Mars. You certainly can (and should!) design hardware that simultaniously serves dual roles on both the Moon and Mars, in order to save expenses, but there is no "study" or "experimentation" that needs to be done on the moon to prepare us for Mars.

We had comprehensive, workable, plans based on existing (not future) hardware and technology to get to Mars since at least the mid 90s. We didn't do it because of internal NASA bickering and politics. Everybody thinks "oh we can't get to mars for X reason without Y technology". When you ask other scientists about X reason, they explain that X is bunk, and that the real reason the first group is so "concerned" with X reason is because Y technology is the pet project of that team.

Of course then this same second group explains to you that the REAL reason we can't get to Mars is because of reason Z, which will convinently be fixed by THEIR technology Q, which they could get finished quickly if only they had more funding.

It's all about getting funding for your pet project.

Re:Why Mars and not the Moon?

[CrimsonAvenger]

I don't quite understand why it is we're (ostensibly) pushing for Mars now,

We're not actually pushing for Mars now. We're talking about pushing for Mars...

Nor did Obama say as much. What he said is that he expects to see humans go to Mars by the 2030's. He didn't actually go as far as saying that he's going to direct NASA to move in that direction, or provide them any money for R&D leading in that direction....

Re:Why Mars and not the Moon?

[Skarecrow77]

The VAST majority of failed Mars missions failed during automated landing, not during transit.

Granted, we weren't sending air-breathing meatbags before, but let me ask you this question: What's the big problem with risks?

Re:Why Mars and not the Moon?

[poly_pusher]

From the following space.com article: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mars_dangers_040120.html Scientists are still working to characterize the dangers and develop the technologies necessary for safe suits and ships. This much they know: Any trip beyond Earth orbit will involve radiation threats not faced by residents of the International Space Station, which sits inside the planet's magnetic field. A 2-1/2-year trip to Mars, including six months of travel time each way, would expose an astronaut to nearly the lifetime limit of radiation allowed under NASA guidelines. The Moon, with no atmosphere, is more dangerous than the surface of Mars. Lunar forays will have to be brief unless expensive shielded habitats are built. Mission planners knew the Apollo astronauts would be at grave risk if a strong solar flare occurred during a mission. The short duration of each trip was a key to creating favorable odds. "A big solar event during one of those missions could have been catastrophic," said Cary Zeitlin, a radiation expert at the National Space Biomedical Research Institute at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. "The risk was known. They gambled a bit." Once again, the purpose of space travel is not to "do something really cool" It is to gain scientific understanding. Any other reason is pointless. A failed mission reduces the amount of scientific knowledge we gain. Risk is fine. People take risks everyday. Currently and ironically trying to go to Mars is like "shooting the moon." Huge risk with small odds of worthwhile reward.

Antarctica?

[mi]

Can we, please, please, please, colonize Antarctica first? Although not a planet, it is still a giant continent, that many times easier to reach, to live on, and to return from than Mars.

There are no questions of presence of water or usable air. Conditions are harsh, but nowhere near the harshness of Mars...

And then there are the vast deserts like Gobi or Sahara. Mars, while intriguing, can await further revolutions in technology. Spending an appreciable chunk of the GDP just to get there seems rather wasteful...

Re:Antarctica?

[laejoh]

famous last words: Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!

Fairly pointless research

[Orga]

Currently we have rules against engineering other planets and it's made very clear without massively changing the atmosphere on Mars to filter out UV rays then everything is going to have to live in biospheres... we can do that anywhere.. even in space.

Planetary visits are an obsolete idea

[bradbury]

The entire concept of planetary visits, colonies, etc. is the one of the most out-of-date (read waste-of-time) ideas currently circulating. The only people that promote it are those with misguided romantic ideas about humans exploring Mars as they did the Earth in the 16th-18th centuries. They should be discarded as out of date given that (a) humans are not designed (due to insufficient and error prone DNA repair systems in their genome) to endure long term space voyages or planetary habitation outside of the magnetosphere of the Earth (where high radiation doses are a constant threat); (b) progress in robotics and AI is likely to make sending robotic explorers much more productive and less hazardous than sending humans by 2030; and (c) if we pushed on molecular nanotechnology just a little harder by 2030 we would be disassembling Mars for material to build the Matrioshka Brain rather than thinking about growing food on it for colonists (no point building a farm if you are only going to disassemble it).

I like the romantic exploration ideas just as much as the next person -- but it just isn't justified given current rates of technological progress. It is also worth pointing out if we ever get to the point where we modify our genomes (or those of astronaut explorers) to be radiation tolerant we can also engineer them to be lack-of-gravity tolerant [1]. In which case living at the bottom of a gravity well makes no sense -- instead we should be migrating to O'Neill style colonies or long term interstellar "arks" (presumably to remove the "single-point-of-failure" problem humanity faces by living on a single planet or around a single star).

1. Modifying large numbers of cells to be radiation & lack-of-gravity tolerant in adults will be very hard (read nearly impossible) without molecular nanotechnology (e.g. chromallocytes) in adults. The only way to do this correctly is to breed a new species of human designed for space environments. Unless you can engineer them to mature much faster (doubtful) that implies you need to take transgenic-human-birth-dates + ~25-30 years before one can seriously consider long term exploration/colonization efforts.

Re:Planetary visits are an obsolete idea

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, I can't help but start laughing at this post;

While certainly true that humans are not biologically adapted to conditions on a long space voyage, Humans are not biologically adapted to crossing large oceans either. Nor are they biologically adapted to flying at high altitudes.

Humans routinely do these things though.

Something you might (or might not, given the tone of your post) find interesting:

http://pop.aip.org/phpaen/v14/i5/p053502_s1?isAuthorized=no
[abstract about inflation of magnetic fields using high density plasmas]

Essentially, you could create a massively inflated magnetic field around the spacecraft by circulating a high-velocity plasma jet through the magnetic field. If we are already taking a small fission plant with us (to power our craft as we leave the sun behind) this is less of a problem. Additionally, we could potentially use the same expanded magnetic field as a solar sail, since in space the field would expand to a *ahem* "Very considerable" size.

The major issue would be with micrometeorites.

As for Mars itself:

Mars as an incomplete magnetic envelope. It has multiple magnetic dipoles, that do not fully expand outside the planet's atmosphere. By supplementing the martian magnetosphere with a series of stabilizing plasma producing satellites, and capturing the solar wind particles and recirculating them through an artificial network of magnetic currents, a semi-stable magnetic envelope could possibly be produced, but it would require a project on par with our GPS and COM-SAT network around the earth.

(the goal would be to create something similar to the van-allen belts that circle the earth; being essentially solar wind particles that have become trapped in the earth;s magnetosphere, and which expand/enhance it. This phenomenon is well known; See for instance, Io's effect on Jupiter's magnetosphere.)

http://www.solarviews.com/eng/io.htm

Re:Planetary visits are an obsolete idea

[MozeeToby]

(a) humans are not designed (due to insufficient and error prone DNA repair systems in their genome) to endure long term space voyages or planetary habitation outside of the magnetosphere of the Earth (where high radiation doses are a constant threat);

Humans aren't designed for a lot of things we do on a regular basis. It is our technology that allows us to live in many of the environments we call home, I bet more than 50% of people on the planet would die within a year if you put us back in the stone age. And even stone age technology (simple tools, simple shelter, and fire) is still a big step up from what the human body alone is capable of. My point is that what the human body is and isn't designed for is irrelevant, it's what we can design and build to support us.

Re:Planetary visits are an obsolete idea

[Chris Burke]

My point is that what the human body is and isn't designed for is irrelevant, it's what we can design and build to support us.

While still agreeing with you, I might put it like this: The most distinguishing features of the human body are our upright posture, our dexterous hands for fine manipulation, and our large problem-solving abstract-thinking brains, which are all almost certainly interrelated features in our evolutionary history. Upright posture allowed our spines to support a much heavier head, and freed the hands to be used as tool-holders instead of for locomotion, while the benefits to adaptability given by intelligence and tool use made selection for upright posture stronger, etc.

In other words, I'd say this is exactly what human bodies were designed for.

GECK?

[notjustchalk]

"...a starter kit for the first colonists."

I'd lobby for it to be called the Garden of Eden Creation Kit, but there might be fallout from that decision...

Re:How, exactly?

[Locke2005]

Never let the facts stand in the way of a good anti-Obama rant!

Obama's strategy, which increases NASA's budget by $6 billion over the next five years, looks to commercial space vehicles to take over the role of transporting astronauts to and from low Earth orbit and focuses the agency's efforts on technologies that will take explorers to destinations beyond the Moon.

Canceling Constellation != "draining the lifeblood out of every avenue of manned exploration", and in fact, Obama is increasing NASA's budget!

Current Date + 20

[dmgxmichael]

Nixon and Ford targeted Mars by the end of the millennium. Reagan targeted it at or around this year. Clinton said by 2020 - Obama pushes it to 2030.

It's always going to be Current date + 20. I've lost hope.

Re:Current Date + 20

[Skarecrow77]

you're actually right on the money.

It's a 10 year project, no more. If we target a longer development cycle, politics will interfere.

We're quite lucky that Kennedy targeted "this decade" for the moon landing, giving us 9 years to get there. Nixon and congress were already guttong apollo by the time we actaully landed on the moon. If kennedy had said "1979" instead, then by 1969 we would have just been finishing up the mercury flights as the entire program was canceled.