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Hi guys, I helped build the Cubesat. Any questions: Fire away!
by nikosdabizas 10y ago
Hi guys, I helped build the Cubesat. Any questions: Fire away!
- rmeertens 10y agoHey! Great that you answer questions. A question I had was if you took the temperature into account in your experiments. A second question I has was: how similar is the sand you are using to real martian sand? Do you have any images of the resulting potatoes? Would they be edible?
- nikosdabizas 10y agoSo, we are regulating temperature in the cubesat. We're assuming the best conditions possible on Mars, which is summer near the equator. This means up to 20°C during the day and around zero at night (if you watch the timelapse you can occasionally see the humidity freeze and defrost, dripping on the soil)
- nikosdabizas 10y agoThe sand is very similar to Martian soil samples observed by various NASA landers over the years. It comes from a very special region in the Atacama desert called Pampas De La Joya. Our lead biologist, Julio, has been doing experiments there for years. You can read more about it on potatoes.space/mars
- nikosdabizas 10y agoLastly, the potatoes are still growing, but we expect them to be edible. Tests done outside the cubesat prior to this, growing potatoes in the soil from La Joya, were safe to eat.