NASA has been discussing a possible 2030s manned mission on Mars, since Mars is much further than the moon, food is more of a concern. Of course, the astronauts could always load enough food for the trip, but one particularly interesting suggestion was to GROW food on Mars. This suggestion raised a lot of questions. Can plants and crops survive on Mars? Would be we need a green house? The Sun is a lot weaker on Mars than the Earth, how would that affect the growth of the plants? The Mars doesn’t have an atmosphere like Earth does, would the atmospheric pressure affect the crops in a negative way?
Apparently, plants could in fact survive on Mars. It would take a big green house, since the thinner the atmosphere, the bigger the green house we need. The weaker Sun would slow down the growth of plants, but agricultural scientists have long been researching on artificial light to grow crops. Not only that, they have actually been able to focus the specific frequency of light wave that plants needs to increase the efficiency of their growth.
A quote that stood out in particular in the article follows, “Every great migration in history happened because we took our agriculture with us”. This quote speaks very well the most if not all the greatest explorations on Earth. Even in this very country, it all started with explorers coming to the New World, bringing along their crops and seeds as a means to survive. If we can sustain ourselves in a place, we can live and multiply there as well.
