The results are promising
A scientific organization called the International Potato Center and the American aerospace agency NASA conducted an experiment on growing potatoes in conditions close to Martian. Despite the dry soil characteristic of Mars, unusual air and low atmospheric pressure, many varieties managed to germinate successfully.
The experiment was reported as early as the beginning of last year, when specialists are most suitable for growing in "Martian" conditions. About half of these varieties have been artificially bred to require little water and be resistant to viruses. Other varieties that were selected for the experiment grow in the Andes - they are able to grow on rocky soil in arid areas and tolerate sudden climatic changes well.
Scientists have planted potatoes in a special "greenhouse" based on the CubeSat satellite. Inside this installation, there was land from the Pampa de la Hoya desert (one of the driest places on Earth), the atmospheric pressure, as well as the composition of the atmosphere, corresponded to the "Martian", the air temperature also corresponded to that usually observed on the Red Planet. Minerals characteristic of Martian soil were added to the soil.
The experiment showed that it is most likely possible to grow potatoes on Mars, but for this it will be necessary to first saturate the soil with nutrients and loosen it - in this case, the tubers will receive enough water and oxygen.
Specialists conduct similar experiments to find out how high the chances of actually growing certain foodstuffs on Mars will be - for example, if an expedition is sent to Mars, and such a "garden" would provide food for its participants.
In the middle of last year, specialists from Holland that they managed to grow radishes, peas, rye and tomatoes on soil similar to Martian soil, and all these products turned out to be suitable for human consumption.
The latest sci-fi film from star film director Ridley Scott showed a futuristic astronaut stepping on the rugged surface of Mars for the first time. The film was shot in 3D in the style of Marvel. The viewer can see new, previously unknown examples there. computer graphics, with the help of which the director recreates interesting cosmic phenomena, such as a Martian thunderstorm.
The entire film crew and video makers work directly with NASA's top scientists to create the most accurate picture possible. We interviewed NASA's lead scientist, Dog Meing, about what he thinks about this unusual kind of collaboration.
"Overall, I think it's going to be something very, very interesting. We're working hard to recreate everything exactly as it is."
Movie: Mars desert scenery looks very convincing: red rock cliffs, vast expanses of rocky sand, created from a mixture of digital effects and footage from Jordan. Does it correspond to what is actually there?
Science: "Actually, all models of the planet's surface were created on the basis of real photographs of Mars. We have several spacecraft, and they helped us with the pictures. Mars is a planet that develops and changes at a fairly fast pace. Especially , considering that there is one of the largest volcanoes in solar system. Although there is one valley besides the volcano, and if it is transferred to the United States, then it will stretch from the East to the West coast. The video makers really did a very good job of creating such a detailed picture."
Movie: In the movie, astronaut Mark Watney (Daimon) plants and grows potatoes on Mars using Martian soil and a makeshift irrigation system.
Science: "I already foresaw what could be done if I came to NASA 30 years later," said Meing, Ph.D. and soil scientist from the University of Texas. "I'm sure you could take some soil, as I did main character to the cinema, and put potatoes there, adding water. It could start growing if there was nitrogen anywhere."
Movie: To grow his potatoes, Watney fed the plant with solid human waste (faeces) from both his own and other astronauts. Thus, he was able to provide all the necessary nutrients to the plant, including nitrogen.
Science: "If I were on Mars, I would do the same thing," Meing said. "We don't do this on Earth because there is no need for it. However, this fact is absolutely real. In addition to feces, urine can also be used. It also has a lot of nitrogen."
Movie: in fact, Mars is a very "dry" planet. In order to provide water for his potatoes, the protagonist created an impromptu watering system where he burned oxygen from the life support system in his habitat from the remaining spacecraft, where there was hydrogen. Certainly, the first attempt to do something like this ended in failure.
Science: "Yeah, you know, we found this one particularly interesting. There's no doubt that hydrogen burns. And if you have a source of oxygen, you can potentially produce water. In theory, it does work, but doing it under the conditions in which the main character ended up is very, very difficult," Meing said.
Film: Martian dust storms are accompanied by lightning and tornadoes that appear suddenly. Is it really true?
Science: "Yes, the main character is in one of these areas. Dust storms occur very often there. They can be said to have covered the entire planet. But this phenomenon happens pretty quickly. If we were actually there, then our devices would be able to foresee it, and we managed to escape."
Film: In the frame, our eye often catches a six-wheeled car that looks terribly familiar. Why do all spacecraft and Martian rovers in the movies have six wheels?
Science: "The suspension of such ships can move up and down without any problems," Meing says. "If a situation happens when one of the wheels suddenly turns out to be not on the ground, then this will not interfere with the work of the other five. Absolutely all spacecraft on Mars have exactly 6 wheels. For future manned missions, this thing is very important."
Future colonies on Mars, which the inhabitants of the Earth expect to create, will require from the first settlers not only courage and endurance, but also the ability to provide themselves with food. To make this task feasible, experts International Center potatoes began in 2016 an experiment to grow the plant in extreme conditions. After conducting a series of experiments, they made a statement that, according to preliminary data, potatoes can grow in dry, salty soil under the conditions of the atmosphere of the Red Planet.
To test whether potatoes can adapt to such an environment, the scientists used a container created by specialists from the University of Engineering and Technology (UTEC) in Lima based on a small CubeSat satellite. They placed soil similar in properties to Martian soil - dry, salt-rich samples were taken from the Pampas de la Hoya desert in southern Peru.
The installation recreated the composition of the atmosphere of Mars - it contains 95% carbon dioxide and only about 1% oxygen.
The pressure in the chamber was also set appropriate, more than 100 times less than the earth. The researchers also simulated night and daytime temperatures on the Red Planet - with sharp drops. The soil was watered with water saturated with nutrients.
At the same time, the experimenters watched how they would grow in difficult conditions. different types potatoes. So they managed to determine the most persistent. The process of emergence of sprouts on tubers was recorded on video.
“Growing potatoes in conditions similar to Mars is an important part of the experiment,” said researcher Julio Valdivia-Silva from UTEC. We want to find out what are minimum requirements for his growth.
The research team is not only interested in how the settlers will provide themselves with food on another planet.
Selecting the most resistant types of potatoes, they argue, will help to cope with the threat of hunger on Earth.
According to them, the most unpretentious species will help feed the inhabitants of those parts of our planet where adverse climate changes have already occurred or are soon expected and crop yields are under threat.
- pixabay.com
Garden with lead and mercury
At the same time, other research groups managed to take care not only of the availability of food for the conquerors of space, but also of its diversity.
Specialists at Wageningen University in the Netherlands have been working on this problem since 2013. Then a whole series of experiments was launched to find out how to grow edible plants on the Moon and Mars.
The scientists started by planting 10 types of plants: 6 grains and 4 types of vegetables. To recreate the Martian soil, samples from the Mauna Loa volcano were used. And to simulate the moon, the samples were taken from the desert in Arizona. The experience was successful: the plants sprouted.
The researchers found that the worst thing for plants would be on the moon. However, the Dutch experts did not try to change the composition of the atmosphere in which they tested the potential of plants. According to their conclusions, plants will have to be grown under a kind of cap. The air there will be similar to the earth. In addition, scientists will protect crops from the harmful effects of the gaseous envelope of Mars and from radiation.
- pixabay.com
However, the scientists did not dare to try the plants grown as a result of the experiment: they considered that the fruits that the “Martian” soil gave were dangerous due to the high content of lead, arsenic, mercury and iron in it.
It wasn't until July 2016 that a team from Wageningen University first tried to find out whether vegetables, cereals and beans grown "on Mars" are edible. It turned out that the content of potentially hazardous substances in radishes, peas, rye and tomatoes does not exceed the permissible limit.
Now researchers continue experiments and experiment with living organisms. In February 2017, a group of researchers began to observe the life of worms in the studied soil. Specialists feed them with the remains of last year's "Martian" harvest. No interim results have been announced yet. It is worth noting, however, that the success of such an experiment will mean that at least a small self-sustaining ecosystem can be created on Mars or the Moon.
Today, October 8, the premiere of Ridley Scott's film "The Martian" will take place in Russia. So is it possible to grow potatoes on Mars? Researcher Bruce Bagby said that he began to study the issue of astronauts growing their own products in 1982.
Now Bagby is studying the prospects for self-sufficiency of astronauts when creating the first space colonies. In the photo below, you can see radishes and lettuce growing under LEDs in one of the research chambers. These plants experience what is known as the ISS "orbital photoperiod" when cycles repeat every 90 minutes: 60 minutes of bright light and 30 minutes of darkness. Crops are grown using hydroponic technology (without soil) and watered with a hydroponic solution by drip irrigation.
From the seeds that have been in space, they grew corn - the result is surprising
Judging by preliminary studies, the growth rate of such plants is slightly reduced compared to the growth of plants from the control group, which grow with the frequency of the earth's cycle (16 hours of the day and 8 hours of the night). There are numerous challenges and benefits to the idea of growing food on Mars. When it comes to long-term missions, it's simply not cost-effective to take food with you if you can grow it locally, says Bugby in an article for the Huffington Post.
However, it's not just about food. Crops can do more than just provide food. If 100% of all food is grown in closed systems, plant photosynthesis will keep oxygen and carbon dioxide in perfect balance. But these important gases are not in perfect balance every minute of every day.
Plants will not automatically grow faster to provide additional oxygen when needed, so buffers are needed to stabilize their concentration. Mass optimization of such buffers - not an easy task, as they need to be large enough to support life during times of instability, but small enough to be economical. However, in life support systems, "small" and "stable" are incompatible concepts. For centuries on Earth, massive oceans have acted as such buffers, but there are none on Mars.
Sufficient stock fresh water- this is the second problem that needs to be solved for growing food on Mars. Plants require at least 200 liters of water to produce one kilogram of food. The good news is that plants recycle and filter water - even if you water the roots with not too clean water, the water vapor that will come out of the pores on the leaves (stomata) will be purer than the best bottled water. As long as we grow food in a closed system, we will have fairly clean water - and there is no need for high-tech filtration systems.
And now, after the NASA press conference, which announced that there are salty water, one might think of life support systems by filtering salt from the water that the planet already has. This technology is already being used in cities with limited water supplies, so it could be used on Mars as well.
The third major problem is the light required for photosynthesis. Unlike room cultivated plants cannot survive without bright light, their photosynthesis processes are faster. In an ordinary (well-lit!) office, a hundred times less light than outdoors, and 30 times less than the minimum light needed to grow potatoes or other crops. At the same time, Mars is 1.5 times farther from the Sun than the Earth, and although the thin atmosphere of the planet minimally filters solar radiation, the intensity of illumination on the surface is about 60% of that of the earth.
However, in the film, protagonist Mark Watney, once on Mars, grows potatoes using office lighting in a room designed to block electromagnetic radiation from the Sun. The design of a Martian greenhouse is fraught with enormous difficulties. An extremely strong, transparent membrane is needed that will withstand meteorite bombardment. It must filter cosmic radiation, passing photosynthetically active.
In the newest this moment technology uses parabolic concentrating reflectors, and sunlight is transmitted using fiber optics. Calculations show that with such technologies, as well as optimal environmental conditions, a landing area of 25 square meters.
What else in the film looks implausible? We know that Mark Watney survived on protein bars, vitamins and carbohydrates from potatoes for almost two years. We don't yet know the long-term effects of such a restricted diet. We usually eat hundreds of plants per week. Can we reduce the diet to 50 plant species, or even 10? Possibly, but we need long-term studies with people in closed systems on Earth to determine the consequences of such a limited diet. If we assume that the environment on Mars will be limited, it must be taken into account that the diet will be strictly vegan, without fruits or nuts growing on trees.
Early research points to the enormous psychological value of plants. Mark Watney reminisced about potato plants that he was short of after harvest. When astronauts return to Earth, they often talk about experiments with growing plants and the connection they have with them. 10 years ago, an astronaut who spent a year in space declared: "Long-term space expeditions are impossible without plants."
Our planet is this closed system that rushes through outer space. The best minds on the planet are now focused on solving the problem of the consequences that arose as a result of a seemingly insignificant change - an increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from 0.03% to 0.04%. We are just beginning to understand the implications and impact of this seemingly minor change.
Perhaps the adventures of Mark Watney will inspire young people to further scientific research and help save our planet from possible destruction.
The protagonist of the film is forgotten on Mars, but he does not despair - he grows potatoes on the red planet and even manages to take off on a spaceship without portholes. Many viewers have a question: is it possible in reality? We asked experts to comment on some controversial points.
Can a tarp be so strong that it can withstand all this - both the storm on Mars and the flight? (It didn't break right away.)
Dmitry Pobedinsky, physicist, popularizer of science, author of a video blog"Physics from Pobedinsky" :
The tarpaulin is strong for the Martian atmosphere. It is very rarefied, the pressure on the surface is 160 times less than on Earth. Therefore, it is likely that the tarp will be able to withstand such a load. But, of course, you need to calculate more accurately.
The tarp in the movie doesn't even seem to have torn, but simply slid off as the ship almost entered orbit. Perhaps the knots were untied from overload and vibrations.
Is it possible to grow potatoes from Martian soil, fertilizing it with human waste products?
Dmitry Pobedinsky: Martian soil consists of inorganic compounds. Like sand. Is it possible to grow something in sand? If yes, then it will work in the Martian soil.
Alexey Sakharov, Chairman of the Council of the Organic Farming Union:
In principle, it is possible, although, most likely, not so quickly. The fact is that in nature, even in sterile soil (for example, sterile sand) contains all the chemical elements necessary for plant growth, but they are in a form inaccessible to plants. The process of creating mineral substances from these chemical elements, which will be in a form digestible for the plant, is a process almost entirely and completely associated with the activity of microorganisms. Having fertilized the sterile substrate with waste products, the main character introduced biota into this soil, which, after a certain period, will be able to create soil from this soil in the course of its life activity that will be nutritious enough for the growth of plants, including potatoes. 
The hero of Matt Damon spent more than a year (500 sols) eating only potatoes, at first feeding himself with vitamins, but then they ended. Nevertheless, he retained a beautiful smile, no signs of scurvy or other problems - except that he lost weight. How is this possible?
Leyla Kadyrova, Chief Freelance Dietitian of the Ministry of Health of the Krasnodar Territory:
It will be difficult to get sick with scurvy, eating only potatoes. Potatoes contain vitamin C, which, when properly cooked, remains in the vegetable in sufficient quantities and allows the body to resist the disease.
"Martian". Film frame
But I assure you that nothing good will happen to the health of a person who eats only one potato for a year. What is a potato? This is a fairly satisfying, starchy vegetable, which contains practically no proteins and fats. This is a carbohydrate food. If for a long time the body does not receive proteins, it means that it will not have " building material for all vital body systems. A person will feel weakness and lack of energy, his performance will decrease, the functions of the liver, nervous and circulatory systems, and pancreas will be disrupted. If there are no fats in the diet, then brain function will worsen, problems with the intestines will begin, joint diseases may occur.
Absolutely, eating only potatoes, it is impossible to die of hunger. But earning numerous immunity diseases is quite realistic. The body will simply lose its ability to fight viral infections.
The hero of the film sets fire to hydrogen to make water. Is it really possible? Can you try making this at home?
Dmitry Pobedinsky: When hydrogen is burned, water is actually produced. It is difficult to do this at home. After all, at least hydrogen is needed, and it is not sold in the store, after all, an explosive gas.
What is a gravity sling?
Dmitry Pobedinsky: The gravity sling is a gravity maneuver. You can fly past the planet and build your trajectory in such a cunning way that after the flyby of the planet your speed will increase, and without the use of engines. The trick is that there is an exchange of energy of movement with the planet. The speed and energy of the spacecraft are increasing. The energy of the planet decreases by the same amount, but it has such a huge mass that the decrease in its speed is negligible.
Could a person survive in an apparatus that takes off from Mars without windows and a roof?
Dmitry Pobedinsky: If a person's vital activity is supported by a spacesuit, then I think yes, you can take off without portholes.
Why didn't the main character die of radiation on Mars? Especially using a reactor for heating?
Dmitry Pobedinsky: For heating, he did not use a reactor, but a radioisotope thermoelectric generator. It contains a radioactive substance in which a slow process of radioactive decay occurs, and not a nuclear reaction. In general, if you disconnect it from the load, it will generate heat. At the same time, if it is not damaged, the radiation background around it will be higher than natural, but not fatal.
Previously, there was even a practice of installing such pieces in hard-to-reach areas - in the taiga, tundra. To power beacons or other autonomous means of communication.
Another thing is solar radiation. The atmosphere on Mars is rarefied, it does not protect well from it. But they didn’t walk naked there either, they were in spacesuits. They protect against solar radiation.
Can there really be such a strong wind on Mars?
Dmitry Pobedinsky: The wind on Mars can be fast, but it is very rarefied. Therefore, the strongest Martian bad weather will spoil the hairstyle at most.
What is one sol equal to?
Dmitry Pobedinsky: One sol is one Martian day. It is almost like ours - 24 hours 39 minutes 35.24409 seconds.
How did the Hermes have enough fuel to return halfway back to Mars, pick up Matt Damon and fly back?
Dmitry Pobedinsky: You don't need fuel to fly in space! You fly by inertia. Therefore, using gravitational maneuvers, I think it is possible to cruise between the planets for quite a long time (fuel is only needed to correct the orbit and to move from one orbit to another). With such maneuvers, a lot of it is not needed.
How did the heroes manage to “swim” so famously in outer space without a safety cable?
Dmitry Pobedinsky: I have no idea. One awkward movement - and you will fly away from the station home.
What did you, as a physicist, confuse in the film?
Dmitry Pobedinsky: Confused by how he, having pierced the glove, was able to control his movement. After all, if you apply force not to the center of gravity, then you will be twisted. And finding the center of gravity is quite difficult.
It was embarrassing how he famously sealed the cracked glass of the spacesuit with adhesive tape. It's not even a matter of strength, but of stickiness and tightness - how did he seal everything perfectly so quickly, while also being in a spacesuit?
Also in all the films where spaceship rotates to create artificial gravity, do not take into account the Coriolis force. She would constantly push you to the side.
On Mars, gravity is 3 times weaker. Didn't see it in the movie. But it should be tangible: it is the same as weighing twenty instead of sixty kilograms, for example.
Another embarrassing thing is that there is lighting inside the spacesuit. Any driver knows that if the light is on in the car, then a reflection appears on the glass. It will be the same in a spacesuit. Light will be reflected from the inner surface and it will be hard to see through the glass.
"Martian". Film frame
