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A potato authority is attempting to grow hardy varieties of tubers in Mars-like soil:
The International Potato Center (CIP) launched a series of experiments to discover if potatoes can grow under Mars atmospheric conditions and thereby prove they are also able to grow in extreme climates on Earth. This Phase Two effort of CIP's proof of concept experiment to grow potatoes in simulated Martian conditions began on February 14, 2016 when a tuber was planted in a specially constructed CubeSat contained environment built by engineers from University of Engineering and Technology (UTEC) in Lima based upon designs and advice provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in Ames Research Center (NASA ARC), California. Preliminary results are positive.
[...] The CubeSat houses a container holding soil and the tuber. Inside this hermetically sealed environment the CubeSat delivers nutrient rich water, controls the temperature for Mars day and night conditions and mimics Mars air pressure, oxygen and carbon dioxide levels. Sensors constantly monitor these conditions and live streaming cameras record the soil in anticipation of the potato sprouting. Live streams of the experiment can be viewed at potatoes.space/mars or by going to the CIP website at www.CIPotato.org.
[...] From the initial experiment, CIP scientists concluded that future Mars missions that hope to grow potatoes will have to prepare soil with a loose structure and nutrients to allow the tubers to obtain enough air and water to allow it to tuberize. "It was a pleasant surprise to see that potatoes we've bred to tolerate abiotic stress were able to produce tubers in this soil," Amoros said. He added that one of the best performing varieties was very salt-tolerant from the CIP breeding program for adaptation to subtropical lowlands with tolerance to abiotic stress that was also recently released as a variety in Bangladesh for cultivation in coastal areas with high soil salinity. Amoros noted that whatever their implications for Mars missions, the experiments have already provided good news about potato's potential for helping people survive in extreme environments on Earth.
CubeSat on the ground? Or a plastic terrarium?
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Friday March 10 2017, @06:35PM (7 children)
If you read the actual article, it says they use a mix of martian-like AND earth soil to achieve growth. There's a distinct lack of terran soil on Mars. I dare you to put a price tag on carting a few wheelbarrow-loads to the red planet...
So basically the result is " Hey look people we can grow potatoes on Mars if we cheat and don't grow them under martian conditions!". Funny. And I can read every card you hold up from a deck of cards in another room if you let me cheat with a CCTV camera.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Grishnakh on Friday March 10 2017, @06:51PM (1 child)
You don't need Terran soil; you can also do it by just mixing human poop into the Martian soil. I saw a documentary about this.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Friday March 10 2017, @11:48PM
It only works with Matt Damon poop. Elon Musk has started stockpiling it already. It's currently unclear if Matt Damon has consented to this.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DeathMonkey on Friday March 10 2017, @07:05PM
I dare you to put a price tag on carting a few wheelbarrow-loads to the red planet...
Cheaper than hauling the potatoes that could be grown in said soil.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 10 2017, @07:37PM
Well exporting a good earthworm colony would be a good start.
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Friday March 10 2017, @08:03PM (2 children)
So I suppose the real question is, "What minerals are in that terran soil that could be shipped over with the seeds?"
Still, correct in your statements - I suspect your real objection lies with the clickbait nature of the press release. "Please give us more funding!" is what it says to me...
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Friday March 10 2017, @11:57PM (1 child)
It's not mineral, it's microbiological and organic. The only thing that will grow on pure rock is lichen... Pretty much all life on earth is part of an ecosystem that involves other living organisms which have adapted to each other over time. Thinking you can just import a plant and hope it will grow based on mere chemical and physical conditions is naive. Yes this "science" is more about stress testing the potato plant (which can have valid scientific uses) than any real attempt to grow something on Mars. You'd be better of trying to find anaerobic bacteria that would survive on the red planet and started from there, at the beginning. We are nothing on this planet without the bacteria that support us. People think of bacteria as harmful. The vast majority are ESSENTIAL.
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Saturday March 11 2017, @09:27AM
I hadn't considered that. Very true.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Friday March 10 2017, @06:42PM (3 children)
It will be a day to celebrate when the first crop of Martian Golden Wonders is harvested.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday March 10 2017, @07:02PM (2 children)
It's pretty disgusting how long some Earth fast food joints go without changing their frying oil.
I'm not sure I want fries with that if the last resupply ship was 18 months ago.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Friday March 10 2017, @09:20PM (1 child)
I was going to suggest boiling them with their skins on, then I realised the implications of the water cycle on space missions.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Friday March 10 2017, @10:05PM
Boiling pretty much fixes that as well.
It's not like the water cycle is substantially different on Earth, you just get a few more steps in the process. Or not. I mean if you live downriver from another city the water going into your water treatment plant pretty much came straight out of the sewage treatment plant upstream. And bottled water is no better - those pure bubbling springs on the label are strictly marketing gimmicks, you're getting basically the same water, just with maybe a little more filtering and added perfume, and the benefit of sitting around leaching pseudoestrogens out of the bottle for a few weeks or months.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday March 10 2017, @06:49PM
Because I'm a potato!
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 10 2017, @07:01PM (3 children)
I smell bullshit and there's not much shit or soil on Mars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soil [wikipedia.org]
Most parts of Mars have too low atmospheric pressures for liquid water to exist - it will either be solid or gas.
Most parts of Mars have too low temperatures for liquid water to exist - it will be solid.
Therefore you are unlikely to be able to grow potatoes on most parts of Mars unless you grow them in temperature controlled pressurized environment.
Here is a diagram showing a phase diagram of water: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/08/Phase_diagram_of_water.svg/725px-Phase_diagram_of_water.svg.png [wikimedia.org]
Note that the atmospheric pressure on most places in Mars is 600 Pascals (6 millibar) which is just below the pressure required for liquid water.
http://www.space.com/16907-what-is-the-temperature-of-mars.html [space.com]
On average, the temperature on Mars is about minus 80 degrees F (minus 60 degrees C). In winter, near the poles temperatures can get down to minus 195 degrees F (minus 125 degrees C). A summer day on Mars may get up to 70 degrees F (20 degrees C) near the equator, but at night the temperature can plummet to about minus 100 degrees F (minus 73 C).
Potatoes can survive a bit of frost (they've got reserves), but I doubt they'll do well if they get frozen to -70C on a nightly basis
I'm more likely to have a potato successfully growing in my freezer than them actually successfully growing potatoes in an accurate replication of a typical Martian outdoor environment.
(Score: 2) by Taibhsear on Friday March 10 2017, @07:39PM
I may not be correct in this as I have no citation but I was under the impression that the plants wouldn't be grown straight out on the Martian surface. I imagine in some sort of dome or greenhouse, just using the martian soil as it is plentiful and does not need to be transported from Earth. In which case the temperature would be higher and possibly more stable, enough to keep liquid water. I am interested in seeing if the natural atmospheric mixture is sufficiently high enough in carbon dioxide that the plants could thrive. In which case they could double as oxygen generators for the base while using the outside atmosphere as a supply (or people breathing, or both).
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday March 10 2017, @10:51PM
>and mimics Mars air pressure, oxygen and carbon dioxide levels
Assuming they're not outright lying, that would suggest you're mistaken.
One possible problem - those phase diagrams are for pure water, something that basically doesn't exist outside the lab. Pretty much any sort of "contamination" lowers the freezing point. (And even for pure water they can be misleading - at one atmosphere you can cool liquid water as low as -40C before it freezes, unless there's a seed crystal or ambient chemical catalysts to start the process. On Earth, lots of microbes create such catalysts to promote frost damage in plants (aka lunch))
As it is, there's even considerable (though last I heard not conclusive ) evidence that liquid water regularly flows near the surface of Mars.
As for providing heat and pressure to make thing simpler, you make it sound like that would be a challenge. But just make a greenhouse with a big inflated bag with dirt in the bottom. Make the bag IR (only) reflective and it will heat up even faster. Add some insulation underneath (you don't need any on the walls, you're basically in a vacuum thermos), and you'll have to figure out how to shed all the excess heat.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday March 11 2017, @03:51AM
Dig a trench. Water and atmosphere will pool if it's deep enough.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 4, Funny) by DeathMonkey on Friday March 10 2017, @07:07PM (4 children)
...enough air and water to allow it to tuberize.
Is tuberize a cromulent word?
(Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Friday March 10 2017, @07:17PM (3 children)
Would the International Potato Center lie about potatoes?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday March 10 2017, @10:11PM (1 child)
Would the EPA lie about the environment, TSA lie about transport security, or ...
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday March 10 2017, @10:58PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday March 11 2017, @03:53AM
Soon we'll need an interplanetary potato center.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 10 2017, @08:41PM (5 children)
Today, I started my day reading SoylentNews and had a good laugh with a story of a lawyer's pants catching fire during an arson trial.
After a few hours, I came across a story starting with
"The International Potato Center (CIP) ..."
BEST SOYLENT NEWS DAY EVER!
(Score: 3, Funny) by turgid on Friday March 10 2017, @09:30PM (1 child)
And it's not even 1st April yet :-)
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday March 10 2017, @11:21PM
It's not even April 20 yet.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 11 2017, @12:40AM (2 children)
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday March 11 2017, @03:55AM (1 child)
So what you're saying is we need to send Irishmen to Mars?
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Saturday March 11 2017, @02:11PM
no, just pack them in cubesats...
i hear you can grow potatoes there...