Martian soil 'good enough for asparagus'

Martian soil 'good enough for asparagus'

www.news.com.au

MARTIAN dirt is apparently good enough for asparagus to grow in, NASA scientists said today, as they announced the results of a soil analysis collected by the US Phoenix Mars lander.

"There is nothing about the soil that would preclude life. In fact it seems very friendly," said Samuel Kounaves, the project's lead chemist at the University of Arizona.

"The soil you have there is the type of soil you have in your backyard.

"You may be able to grow asparagus very well."

(visit the link for the full news article)

What an interesting claim by the University of Arizona.

As I said in another thread, it will not be long before NASA discovers and locate plant life on Mars (which its probably already has).

www.news.com.au
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 27-6-2008 by infinite]

reply to post by infinite


I don't like asparagus.

reply to post by Rockpuck


Then you'd better not go to Mars.


I love asparagus BTW, so I'd love to set up a backyard garden on Mars to grow asparagus. I wonder how tomatoes or squash would grow...

reply to post by Rasobasi420



And after your garden is growing well, I wonder about the bug population.

And pollination, although that can be done on a small scale by the gardener.

It would need to be done in a closed environment with foreign bugs introduced and with oxygen available to them. The oxygen would at first need to be provided artificially, but after the domed garden is growing sufficiently, it could be self sustaining.

And, since we wouldn't need to rely on Earth soil, it could be ever growing as well, expanding as necessary.

What the heck is in the Mars atmosphere anyway?

I thought perhaps - after the asparagus comment - that carbon dioxide would be plentiful and plants wouldn't have a problem growing without oxygen.

A domed habitat for plants would keep the oxygen in for human use and the carbon dioxide we give off would help the plants.

Which leads to another question; we've grown successful terrariums and I always wondered if there was a major atmospheric change within or it all balances out.

The best one we had was in a clean glass industrial battery case with a loose fitting wooden lid.

My thoughts were to use the oxygen produced to help sustain small insects for pollination. But, for all I know the insect's spiracles could receive enough oxygen from being in proximity to the plants. However, flying insects would need a dense atmosphere to go from plant to plant. Flapping their wings in the Martian atmosphere probably wouldn't produce the same effect as here on Earth, but I could be wrong. After all, I'm no entomologist, or aeronautical engineer.

reply to post by Desert Dawg

What the heck is in the Mars atmosphere anyway?

The atmosphere on Mars consists of 95% carbon dioxide, 3% nitrogen, 1.6% argon, and contains traces of oxygen, water, and methane. The atmosphere is quite dusty, giving the Martian sky a tawny color when seen from the surface

Mars Atmosphere Wiki

Any opinions on terraforming Mars???

This is just part of a phase for humanity. When our solar system was created it was all spiraling together... miracoulously our plantet consumed a lot of great stuff for us to use and survive... Other planets are made of the same stuff... however some might have chemicals and substances we are not used to... However each planet will have something the Earth does. No doubt about that. Why Asparagus tho?

Plants need Carbon Dioxide to breath. I wonder what the CO2 rate on Mars is?

reply to post by bismarcksea


95% carbon dioxide....see above post.

Originally posted by bismarcksea
Plants need Carbon Dioxide to breath. I wonder what the CO2 rate on Mars is?

95% like Grafilthy said. lol.

The nitrogen count is a bit low too... our air on earth has allot of nitrogen, are we able perhaps to substitute?

This is so cool.. A colony of vegetarians could go and terraform mars.
I wonder what martian caterpillars are like.

I wonder at what level of oxygen production from photosynthesis would be enough to start generating and maintain a liveable atmosphere.

I'd volunteer and live off asparagus just to get outta here.

MMMM Pea-poddy..

Read the terraforming Wiki.....lots of good info.

Really this is one of my favorite questions.
Not so much the ethical one but the scientific one.

I think that because of the way we are heading (humanity as a whole) we will need at some point to expand to another planet.

As far as I am concerned we need to start now and see what happens.
We can always keep Mars quarantined until we know more about the consequences.

Terraform Mars.

By Rockpuck

I don't like asparagus.

hahaah!


Well the soil might be fine and dandey but,
remember Mars has very little ozone and any plant life would be fried chicken in notime from deadly sun radiation.

no plant life can grow there.

but they could take some mars soil and grow it somewhere safe.


or when they terraform mars, which some scientists are thinking up ways of how this could be done.

reply to post by infinite


Nice topic! This; however, is already being discussed here:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Thanks!

Yes but it will it still take you three years to get a crop?

Love asparagus but growing it is time consuming and a pain.