
China prepares to grow vegetables on Mars - othello
https://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hod_Ie0wMvZ5X0-YlGuCU9G63PNw?docId=CNG.46a88dd86d10a67a9033edc98156d446.471
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takluyver
How well could this work?

On the plus side (for plants), the Martian atmosphere is about 95% CO2. Even
though the total pressure of the atmosphere is much less than our own, the
partial pressure of CO2 is still about 20 times higher (erring a bit on the
generous side).

On the other hand, Mars is about 1.5 times as far from the sun, so the
intensity of sunlight is less than half, and temperatures are correspondingly
colder. Then again, if we're going to support human colonists, we probably
need a nuclear power source anyway. So let's assume we rig up bright lighting
to grow our plants.

There's some uncertainty about the soil, but at least some studies suggest
that it could support life. There's probably frozen water there, so we'll use
the spare heat from our nuclear reactor to melt some.

Humans need approximately 30g of Oxygen per hour, which is roughly 1 mole. A
fast-photosynthesising plant can produce 30 umol/m2/s. Running the numbers,
you'd need 9 square metres of leaf area photosynthesising at that rate per
person - assuming it could carry on 24 hours a day. To supply food, you'd need
rather more, because not all of the carbon fixed goes into edible parts.

This is actually a lot more feasible than I initially thought. You'd probably
want to send robots ahead to construct the base and plant the plants, though.
And you still have the problem of life support for the journey, which would be
several months.

~~~
iwwr
If you have a nuclear reactor or extensive solar panels, you may just as well
use it to split CO2 into O2 and CO (monoxide gas can also burned as fuel).
Plant photosynthesis is rather inefficient if your goal is a breathable
atmosphere. If the goal is biomass for food, then just call up Monsanto for a
few space-dense crops.

It would probably easier to oversize the powerplant (to generate oxygen,
growlights, melt water, treat air and waste) than to try to bring along a
whole biological ecosystem. On the first few trips at least...

The advantage with the powerplant approach is that you can live anywhere with
rock and ice in the soil (most airless planetoids) or CO2 and water in the
atmosphere (Venus, Mars or the gas giants).

~~~
apr
If you burn CO as fuel you are producing CO2 back.

~~~
iwwr
It may be useful as fuel for a mars vehicle or for rockets (electric vehicles
will take you not very far and it's hard to strap the nuclear reactor to it).
CO is easier to store than hydrogen. Of course, if you have a steady supply of
ice you can make methane/methanol which is better for that purpose. But to
extract ice you will need heavy mining machinery, earth-moving etc...

CO + O2 fuel would make more sense on Venus, where water would be more scarce
(water is present in thin clouds of sulphuric acid in about 25%
concentration). The surface, however, is another business.

More on Venus (a surprisingly appealing place to go):
<http://www.space.com/5653-cloud-cities-venus.html>

And a story by Geoffrey Landis
<http://www.asimovs.com/2010_09/exc_story1.shtml>

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Synthetase
It's odd that any mention of Elon Musk colonizing Mars results in rapturous
worship.

Other efforts, China in particular, seem to attract scorn. Especially in light
of the fact that Elon Musk's original plan was to send a greenhouse with
plants to Mars.

Perhaps I over-estimate the HN crowd.

~~~
blhack
>Perhaps I over-estimate the HN crowd.

Perhaps this has something to do with China's absolutely atrocious record
regarding:

1) The environment

2) The rest of the world

3) Human rights

\--

Is it really that difficult to understand that some of us have the foresight
to realize that China's method of interfacing with its environment is not
something that we want to see tarnishing a yet-untarnished planet?

~~~
angersock
Think of the verdant fields that could be reduced to red dust!

Truly, an environmental catastrophe. They could render the planet
uninhabitable. :(

~~~
jlgreco
Funny, but I think the actual concerns are more along the lines of _"What
happens if it works?"_

If they accidentally unleash an Earth origin extremophile, it would have the
potential to taint any any life that may already exist on Mars. This
hypothetical life on Mars probably isn't of any real _use_ to us, obviously it
isn't megafauna or something, but it would be of _unspeakable_ scientific
importance. The chance to study live from an independent instance of
abiogenesis.. I just can't find the words to describe how important that would
be.

~~~
anigbrowl
We know all that. That's why we're being cautious about exploring it now; but
we should be able to get a definitive answer on the presence or absence of
Martian life within a decade or two. If there is life there, we'd be better
off studying it i _in situ_ than trying to transport it back and forth.

Present or not, we need to have some kind of strategy for how to survive there
on a long term basic, either for a small-scale scientific mission or on a
larger scale to terraform.

Besides, there are several other places in the solar system that have the
potential to host life, such as Europa. I don't want we should spend so long
sitting on our hands that another generation or more has to die without seeing
the human race explore further. It irritates me that it's already 40 years
since the last moon landing: <http://xkcd.com/893/>

~~~
jlgreco
Oh certainly, I feel the same way. We are definetly going to put humans on
Mars eventually, and better sooner rather than later, but I think that it is
something that needs to be done with an incredible amount of caution. There
are definitely concerns about contamination that need to be considered
carefully when planning such missions.

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skrebbel
> _"If we establish a party branch in space, it would also be the 'highest' of
> its kind in the world," Xinhua quoted Yang as saying._

Really, I love Chinese humor. It's underrated.

~~~
stcredzero
It works like this: Grade school kids running around have puns pop into their
heads, so by the time they get to high school, they're over the obvious ones.
However this only works for their native language.

This is why translated puns can sound very stupid. It's also why you're likely
to sound stupid when you try to pun in Chinese.

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anthonyb
As Bruce Sterling says: "I'll believe that people will colonise Mars when they
start colonising the Gobi desert."

~~~
vidarh
The incentives for colonising the Gobi desert are vastly smaller than for a
(small) colony on Mars or the moon, even just in perceived prestige.

~~~
kibwen
But the costs are also vastly larger, and the payoffs likely smaller.

And prestige? 1/3 of the Earth's land surface is covered by desert. If you
could suddenly transform that from a life-hostile to a life-flourishing
environment, you'd win as many Nobel Peace Prizes as they can possibly stamp
out.

~~~
adrianN
Transforming the desert into a life flourishing environment is really easy,
you just have to add enough water. I believe that's how they do agriculture is
large parts of Africa. It's of course quite expensive to do so if you can't
get the water from, say, an aquifer. Sometimes you can even flood the whole
area, if you want to

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qattara_Depression_Project>

~~~
kibwen
That's an interesting link, but it doesn't really discuss the ecological
effects of such a project regarding human habitablity in surrounding areas.
I'm more hopeful for something like the Green Wall of China[1], but aggressive
enough to actually reclaim desert rather than merely halt its advance. It's
also a plus if it works on a timescale of less than a century. :)

Though we should also note that turning desert into (ideally) arable land
could have disastrous unforeseen effects; consider how much of the Amazon is
fertilized by the Sahara.[2]

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Wall_of_China>

[2] <http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=7279>

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vitno
If China manages to do this, then we will have people on Mars in under 2
years.

Competition from china is the only thing I can see spurring the USA into
action.

~~~
MichaelApproved
Far from. It takes nearly 2 years just to get to Mars.

Also, China tends to be a _fast copier_ , not a leader. They seem to leave the
bulk of development costs to someone else. So I think it's unlikely that they
will front the resources it'll take to make a Mars mission possible.

~~~
swalsh
> China tends to be a fast copier, not a leader

Wasn't there a famous Chinese guy who said something like "never underestimate
your adversary".

In the past that might have been true, but things change. Just one example A
lot of people have been educated in the US, and are going back to china to
start companies.

~~~
saraid216
Does he count as Chinese if he died before the Qin dynasty began?

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bitteralmond
I hate to knee-jerk this one, but my first reaction to this is that it's
probably propaganda. In the States a few years ago, there was an effort to
create a self-contained ecosystem and it failed no matter how hard the
engineers behind it tried. That China can suddenly say "Yo guys, we got it to
work" out of the blue is suspicious at best.

Not to say they haven't got something half-functional. I'm just very skeptical
that it's as great as they say it is.

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pooop
Since soil samples on mars seem to be strongly oxidizing, even containing
perchlorate, the vegetables are likely to catch fire upon touching martian
soil.

~~~
xyzzy123
And growing vegetables on the moon is far too expensive to be practical - moon
rocks cost thousands of dollars per gram!

EDIT: OK, for the benefit of whoever didn't have a sense of humor, I was
suggesting that the astronauts might be planning on bringing some soil with
them.

~~~
draq
ever heard of supply and demand?

~~~
xyzzy123
Yep. It gets kind of interesting though when you think about the challenges.

You could have a really good plan to convert martian soil for plant use, but
then again, that might fail. This obviously means you can't _depend_ on your
garden. Also, what you would have would be a laboratory, not a garden. You
would spend a lot more time analysing the food than eating it.

On the other hand, you could carry out a sample return mission, bring some
mars dust back, run tests, and land with a solid plan. Only thing is, sample
return from mars would make moon rocks look cheap.

Finally, bringing the soil with you would be the most reliable method. It's
moon rocks in reverse though! That soil would be, kilo for kilo, the most
expensive soil in the history of mankind.

~~~
xyzzy123
Thinking about this more, I guess hydroponics might be the way to go ;)

~~~
patrickk
Another way that growing marijuana is benefiting mankind! ;-)

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quarterto
Fill in the blank:

    
    
      1. Develop system capable of growing plants on Mars.
      2. ____________________
      3. Grow plants on Mars.

~~~
JonnieCache
Presumably they are also working on that.

Also, you forgot step 4.

~~~
rpm4321
Profit?

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xradionut
China should focus on developing non-contaminated produce in China, so their
elite doesn't have to import it.

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Aardwolf
I'm all for this, the current policy of "don't contaminate Mars with organic
materials" brings us nowhere, let's put some life on there and see what
happens!

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
I'd be a big fan of sending loads of bacteria with the potential to survive,
and some water and stuff, to Mars. Just to see what happens. Hey, the Martian
environment would be a "gross evolutionary pressure", right? :)

~~~
flyinRyan
Fantastic. We can check back in a few million years to see how it's working.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
We've got to start sometime ;)

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tocomment
Could curiosity give us a good enough picture of the soil composition on mars
that we could recreate it on earth and practice growing plants?

~~~
geuis
I've only skimmed through the first bit, but this probably answers the
question.
[http://www.geology.wisc.edu/~astrobio/docs/Seiferlin_et_al_2...](http://www.geology.wisc.edu/~astrobio/docs/Seiferlin_et_al_2008_Planet_Space_Sci.pdf)

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polymatter
Well, I'm glad someone is thinking about what to do when they get there.

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MrBrandon
It's a worthwhile goal but the preparing is a poor choice of words because it
sounds like it's happening next week. You prepare yourself for work in the
morning. You prepare for going to the supermarket. You prepare to take a dump
by making sure toilet paper is present. You prepare for a trip. You research
growing plants on Mars for many years and eventually stage operations on the
Moon. Finally, when the day comes, you prepare for the first mission to Mars.

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Achshar
But this cannot be of much use, even if they can make an atmosphere somehow,
they would need an active core for magnetic field to protect from solar
particles/radiation.

~~~
xyzzy123
Their experiment was using a closed biosphere, so they're bringing the
atmosphere with them.

Really, I think the original article was terrible; it omitted important
details to make the whole thing sound more silly. Closed biological systems
are an interesting field of research.

I'm not sure about radiation levels on a mars mission, but if we can solve the
problem for humans, it should be solvable for plants/algae.

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stcredzero
There's a lot of thinking in the comments here which is good for what it is,
but which lags far behind engineers and scientists who have thought about it
for years.

Get your hands on this book and read.

<http://amzn.com/0684835509>

~~~
danielweber
There is a new version people should get instead. Not much has changed but we
might as well direct people to the latest stuff:

<http://www.amzn.com/145160811X>

~~~
stcredzero
Sorry, wasn't paying attention.

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ommunist
These are very good news indeed. I started to wonder what good Elon Musk's
colonists and tourists will do on Mars upon arrival. And it appears that they
shall be able to buy some grocery! Isn't that wonderful?

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jcfrei
would've been interesting to know what kind of vegetables.

~~~
xyzzy123
Ah, found it: this is a much better link for the story:
<http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90786/8044143.html>

"During the experiment, four kinds of edible vegetables, namely lettuce, leaf
lettuce, gynura bicolor and sonchus oleraceus, were planted in a 36-square-
meter area to absorb the carbon dioxide exhaled by the two astronauts and
provide them with oxygen and 30-50 grams of fresh vegetables per meal per
person."

Google tells me you need 1 ton of soil to cover 30m^2 to a depth of 25cm. So
now I'm interested to know if/how they're optimising for mass efficiency.

~~~
rpm4321
I think they'll use Martian soil. That's what Elon was planning, and other
commenters below speak to its practicality.

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flipchart
One of my first thoughts was: what will the effects of the reduced gravity be
on the plants? Will they still be able to grow successfully?

~~~
flyinRyan
I've seen plants in photos of the space station and shuttles.

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queryly
I can totally understand. Growing vegetables on earth just doesn't generate
big enough GDP for the 8%-a-year-every-year target.

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aricg
I stopped reading at "develop their own sources of ... water"

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IheartApplesDix
China has been doing great lately, but this sounds like a case of Icarus to
me.

~~~
scaphandre
You've got it wrong.

Mars is further from the sun.

~~~
stcredzero
_> You've got it wrong. Mars is further from the sun._

Actually, this has been studied. There's enough sun with the right timing and
thermal balance (provided the right kind of greenhouse) to grow food.

~~~
qu4z-2
I don't thing the GP was worried about the amount of sunlight needed to grow
food, but rather pointing out that Icarus's downfall was flying too _close_ to
the sun.

