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Martian soil contains non-neglible amounts of phosphates[0]. Phosphorus is highly important for the production of fertilizers and gets increasingly rare here on
by maze-le 9y ago
Martian soil contains non-neglible amounts of phosphates[0]. Phosphorus is highly important for the production of fertilizers and gets increasingly rare here on earth[1]. It wouldn't suprise me if 150 years from now, phosphates are imported from martian soil.
[0]: https://phys.org/news/2013-09-phosphate-soluble-mars.html https://phys.org/news/2013-09-phosphate-soluble-mars.html
[1]: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jsfa.4650/full http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jsfa.4650/full
- seanalltogether 9y agoSurely it must be more economical to recover/recycle it from waste?
- LeifCarrotson 9y agoThe phosphates are washed off by rainwater and diluted into the watershed (eventually the oceans). In the ocean, it is very slowly converted by bacteria and eventually brought back by geologic processes uplifting sediment. For a while, we could mine the deep ocean floor...which might be comparable to mining on Mars.
- maxerickson 9y agoThe easily available deposits on Earth are expected to last longer than 150 years. It's unlikely to be worth the delta-v to bring it here from Mars before known deposits are exhausted. Even after that I expect deep sea mining or direct extraction from seawater to be more viable than interplanetary shipping.
- bluGill 9y agoI expect that sewage treatment to fertilizer will solve the problem before we reach that. Our current time where we are not putting manure on all fields is an anomaly in time.