Fact or Fiction: Growing Food on Mars

The recently released movie “The Martian” has raised an important question – How to grow food on Mars?

In the movie, Mark Watney (played by Matt Damon) plants potatoes in a greenhouse using Martian soil and his own "metabolic waste", LiveScience reports.

Washington State University physicist Michael Allen and UI food scientist Helen Joyner have published online a case study titled, “Farming in Space? Developing a Sustainable Food Supply on Mars”, at the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science.

The case study categorizes the problem-solving method into four parts: Firstly, the students will identify some potential challenges related to sustainable agriculture; Secondly, they will select 5 criteria for ranking potential Martial crops; Thirdly, using the criteria they will identify top three crops and lastly, they will reflect upon the context of the problem, the method of solution, and the results, and thereby identify strengths and weaknesses.

According to WSU News, in around 30 trial runs with students and teachers, “no two people have ever gotten the same answer,” said Allen, a senior instructor of physics and astronomy and director of the WSU Planetarium.

Allen added that one particular problem is that scientists have "little idea" of what Martian soil is actually like. Surveys have detected little carbon, the fundamental element to life, or nitrogen, which is needed to make protein, while water is also likely to react with peroxides in the soil, bubbling off as gas, WSU reported.

IBTimes AU Edition reported that NASA, on Oct 7, announced “In Situ Resource Utilization Challenge”, that offers the public an opportunity to submit designs for structures on Mars that would use existing material. The agency plans to award $10,000 to the first-place winner, with $2,500 each for two second-place submissions. The challenge is open till December 03.

“NASA’s newest challenge is yet another stellar example of the agency’s commitment to harnessing the ingenuity of citizens as we seek to expand the frontiers of knowledge, capability and opportunity in space”, said NASA’s Chief Scientist Ellen Stofan. “Exploring Mars and other worlds is a herculean endeavor. Like other agencies across the federal government, NASA recognizes that our success will be enhanced greatly by involving people with all kinds of knowledge, skill sets and ideas in our work”.

With such efforts in place, it might actually become possible to send people to the Red planet in the future, as NASA hopes to do in the year 2030.