SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Earthworms seem to enjoy Mars-like soil just fine after you add poop and water to it:
Two young worms are the first offspring in a Mars soil experiment at Wageningen University & Research. Biologist Wieger Wamelink found them in a Mars soil simulant that he obtained from NASA. At the start he only added adult worms. The experiments are crucial in the study that aims to determine whether people can keep themselves alive at the red planet by growing their own crops on Mars soils.
[...] 'The positive effect of adding manure was not unexpected', added Wamelink, 'but we were surprised that it makes Mars soil simulant outperform Earth silver sand'. Researchers added organic matter from earlier experiments to both sands. They added the manure to a sample of the pots and then, after germination of the rucola, they added the worms. The result: pots with all possible combinations with the exception of organic matter which was added to all of the pots.
Worms are very important for a healthy soil, not only on Earth but also in future indoor gardens on Mars or the moon. They thrive on dead organic matter such as old plant remains, which they eat, chew and mix with soil before they excrete it. This poo still contains organic matter that is broken down further by bacteria, thus releasing nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium for use by the plants. By digging burrows the worms also aerate and improve the structure of the soil, making watering the plants more effective.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday November 30 2017, @03:17PM (2 children)
Your point about Earth temperature and atmosphere is irrelevant because the plan is to grow the crops indoors, using a mixture of Martian dirt and good old poop.
Radiation may be a concern but there is some amount of protection from the thin Martian atmosphere, Mars's greater distance from the Sun, and the walls of the "greenhouse" or structure they are growing in.
Gravity could be a concern, but crops [wikipedia.org] have been grown in the microgravity environment of the ISS.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday November 30 2017, @03:44PM (1 child)
Crops have grown in microgravity - yes. But, they haven't germinated, grown, gone to seed, for multiple generations yet. Like, thousand of generations. I'm not saying that they WON'T reproduce properly, but we don't yet know that they WILL.
Now, despite the plans, temperature and atmosphere will be a concern. Are they planning on raised beds, as in, "up off of the ground and floor"? We pretty much use only one type of heat, that being forced air. If Martian settlers don't use forced are, how do they plan on heating? My point being - they need to keep the soil warm, to the lowest depths that the plant's roots might grow. A pot full of dirt sitting on a cold floor, with warm air blowing across it isn't exactly what our crops experience here on earth.
You know what I thik is going to happen? All our best minds here on earth are going to make their best guesses about how to grow stuff on Mars. And, it's mostly going to fail. Maybe all of it will fail. First generation anything is first generation, after all. The people who are THERE will make observations, and adjustments, and over time, figure out what works, and what doesn't work.
Hey, don't ask ME what will work!! I'm not there. I'm not even then!!
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday November 30 2017, @04:40PM
Well of course not. To know that for sure we'd have to go there and try it. In fact we'll probably have to go there, try it, fail, go again, try again taking the previous failure into account, fail again in a slightly different way, go and try again and so on until we get it right.
Step 1 though, before any of that, is to gather information and use it to make the best plan possible plan with the limited data available, in order to make that first attempt as successful and instructive as it can be. I mean that first attempt is going to be VERY expensive and risky, so as much preparation as possible makes sense. Simulations and approximations aren't the best tools, but they are a hell of a lot better than nothing.