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Can astronauts grow potatoes on Mars?
Studying the best foods for the growth of future space travelers poses particular challenges. In particular, the Martian soil being different from that of here on Earth, any experiment on the space agriculture must begin by making a mixture of soil which resembles the Martian surface. Different soil mixtures mean that experiments can not be reproduced easily in other laboratories.
Waiting for enough missions to bring the soil back for experiments would delay progress. Fortunately, recent Mars missions have made a quantum leap in scientific knowledge about the characteristics of Martian soil. The astrophysicists of the University of Central Florida have therefore worked to reproduce the best studied Martian dirt, known as Rocknest. Rocknest is thought to be apparent at the soils of other landing sites, making it a good sample to study.
UCF physics professor, Dan Britt, has built some of the material sent to study Mars on the Curiosity mobile. The UCF team uses data from these missions on Mars to inventory the constituents of Martian soil, creating an ingredient recipe and the proportions in which they must be mixed to simulate the Martian soil. This is why their product is called "simulant".
Most of the ingredients for Martian soil can be easily found here on Earth, but some of them prove quite difficult to find because they were brought to our planet only through an occasional meteorite . In some cases, scientists must substitute an ingredient that mimics the Martian elements.
The UCF team released its recipe for Martian soil in the newspaper Icarusbut they also think that other laboratories will prefer to avoid these efforts and therefore sell their Martian soil simulant at $ 20 per kilogram, plus postage. They already have thirty orders, including one for half a ton of soil to send to the Kennedy Space Center.
Or if you want to make your own Martian mud, but you do not know where to look for meteorite dust, you can also order simulants of the moon and asteroids from UCF. Kevin Cannon, lead author of the open source document on Martian soil manufacturing, hopes to accelerate the exploration of space with this contribution.
The University of Central Florida sells experimental Martian dirt at a price of $ 20 / kg plus shipping costs. Or use their open source recipe to create your own.
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