Researches have grown food in simulated Martian
soil. The question they want to answer now
is, will it be safe enough to eat?
This probably reminds you of The Martian.
In that story, the protagonist is faced with
a seemingly impossible challenge: grow food
on Mars. This is hard to do for numerous reasons,
but two big ones are that Martian soil lacks
the nitrogen compounds that plants rely upon
for food, and liquid water is hard to come
by over there.
Back in 2013, scientists at Wageningen University
in the Netherlands bought Martian and Moon
regolith simulants from NASA to experiment
with different approaches to grow Earth crops
on alien soil.
NASA creates these simulants by taking soil
from a volcanic cone in Hawaii for the Martian
dirt and volcanic ash deposits in Arizona
for the Moon simulant. Neither of these are
perfect replicas as they both contain nitrogen
compounds not found on the Moon or Mars, but
it’s about as close as we can get short
of sending a mission to scoop up a significant
amount of soil and bring it back here.
The scientists discovered that some plants
grew well in the soil simulants. They continued
their experiments into 2015, refining their
methods and improving their results by conducting
basic soil treatments.
The experiments included an Earth soil control
group, too. In the 2015 attempt, all samples
were planted in trays that were placed inside
a glass house under a constant temperature,
light condition, atmospheric pressure and
humidity. This was to simulate how crops will
likely be grown on a future Martian colony.
In October 2015, they were able to harvest
their crops. Those crops include stuff like
peas, tomatoes, radishes, rye and, get this,
rocket! Martian rocket! Also known as arugula.
Currently, the scientists are planning a third
round of experiments to test whether or not
such food would be safe to eat. The soil contains
some dangerous stuff in it, like lead and
mercury. It’s possible the plants could
contain toxic levels of these materials, which
would be a new challenge to overcome.
The scientists have launched a crowdfunding
campaign to raise money for this third round
of research. As we’re recording this video,
they are 31 percent of the way there with
two months left to go in the campaign. If
you’d like to help them out, you can donate
a few Euros at the Wageningen crowdfunding
page. And yes, I love saying Wageningen.
Here’s hoping the crops turn out to be safe
to eat and put us that much closer to establishing
a Martian colony. That’s all for today,
folks. Don’t forget to check back every
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