Will there be wine on Mars?

Grapes, like those that Georgian scientists hope to grow on Mars. (photo: Nikoloz Bezhanishvili)

The next time Matt Damon will be abandoned on Mars, he could spend his days sipping Saperavi instead of growing potatoes as he has done so painstakingly in the 2015 blockbuster, The Martian. Georgia, a former viticultural redoubt, shares its best scientific and viticultural brains to develop grapes specific to the Martian culture.

With its rocks and deserts, the red planet may not offer the best soil for growing grapes, but with a record 8,000 years of grape growing on planet Earth, Georgia is always ready to give it a whirlwind. After all, NASA and the International Potato Center have successfully experimented with potato cultivation in conditions similar to those of Mars, so why not move the Martian agriculture to the next stage? sybarite?

The idea was born from a recent call for proposals from NASA, the US Space Agency, for facilitating a sustained human presence on Mars. "This could include shelter, food, water, breathing air, communication, exercise, social interaction and medicine, but participants are encouraged to consider innovative and creative ideas beyond these examples," writes NASA in a press release. .

A working group was set up in Tbilisi to work on the Martian Grape Project, officially launched on 22 June at the Georgian National Museum. Named IX Millennium, the project consists of setting up a "vertical greenhouse laboratory to grow vines in a" closed and controlled space ", reported the Georgian news agency agenda.ge. The laboratory will be based in a hotel in Tbilisi and operated by a company named SpaceFarms.

"We started to think about how Georgia could participate in this project [Journey to Mars Challenge] and we decided that this should be the vineyard, "said Misha Batiashvili, rector of the Tbilisi University of Business and Technology, at IPN Newswire." Winemaking is our historical heritage and our pride. "

According to the traditional method of Georgian winemaking, the wine is aged in giant clay pots, the Kvevries, buried deep in the ground. It is not yet clear whether Georgia will also try to export this technique to Mars. For the moment, efforts are focused on the selection of the most appropriate grape varieties.

Until now, Georgia's main contribution to space exploration has been a popular song sent into space aboard the spaceship Voyager in the 1970s, as part of the message of the NASA from Earth to the universe. As with traditional polyphonic singing, winemaking is closely linked to Georgian national identity. The glory of the vineyard is sung in folk songs and poetry and represented as bas-relief ornaments on the ancient churches of the nation.

A classic film on the theme of the Soviet Second World War, Father of a Soldier, provides perhaps the best representation of the cultural attachment of Georgians to the grape. The protagonist of the film, an old Georgian peasant turned rookie of the Red Army, delightfully finds vineyards in newly occupied Germany. For a moment, he forgets all the battles that surround him and starts talking to the vines, tying new shoots to the lattice. "How did you come here, are you blessed?" He asks in what has become a popular slogan in Georgia. Maybe one day, another Georgian will say the same thing about Mars.

Giorgi Lomsadze is a journalist based in Tbilisi.