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Earthworms can reproduce in Mars soil simulant
- EGreg 9y agoSo it might work! Can we boostrap a real, nutrient-rich regolith and ecosystem from scratch? That would be some amazing terraforming - and some major value for mankind. And here I thought The Martian's most unrealistic part was growing the potatoes.
- aiofgniaotnio 9y agoThe Martian is still pretty unrealistic. It's not possible to get enough light using the setup described in the book.
- notthemessiah 9y agoThe most unrealistic part was the dust storm in the beginning. Not enough air pressure on Mars for wind to do much.
- adrianN 9y agoSomebody did the math: https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/9301/could-you-feel-the-wind-on-mars https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/9301/could-you-fee...
- robinduckett 9y agoBut can they reproduce in the soil at the same range of air pressure found in habitats, with the same gravity / gas mixture? Can they still reproduce after 50 years?
- NegativeLatency 9y agoYou could make pressurized greenhouses on mars to simulate earth conditions.
- QAPereo 9y agoInflatable, radiation shielding, light emitting? How. Edit: Plants and non-human animals wouldn’t appreciate Martian rads either.
- aetherson 9y agoThey don't really need to be radiation shielding or light emitting. People don't need to live there, just plants and animals. And insolation on Mars is sufficient for light.
- marrone12 9y agoExcessive radiation can also kill plants and animals
- QAPereo 9y agoEven before it kills them, it definitely ruins their reproductive capacity, which is going to be critical offworld.
- emiliobumachar 9y agoWe could have a breeding population in an expensive shielded environment, and take most of their young to grow in a cheap, more radioactive environment.
- QAPereo 9y agoNow that’s a really interesting idea! Add in a bank of shielded frozen embryos and sperm and yes, I can see your point.
- adrianN 9y agoIs the radiation on Mars excessive? Quick googling suggests 10-20 rem per year, or about half that of the ISS. As far as I know plants do grow on the ISS.
- azernik 9y agoNeed to run that experiment on the ISS in a Mars-gravity centrifuge. Despite a lifetime of 6-9 years, though, their generation length is only a few months; if they reproduce in that radiation environment for a year or three and there aren't serious mutations, they'll probably be okay in the long run.
- pen2l 9y agoAnd in a few generations probably evolve to build further resiliency for the subject radiation/gravity/air pressure conditions.
- Johnny555 9y agoIf these habitats are also housing people, then the atmosphere will likely be very close to Earth pressure and composition. The atmospheric pressure on the ISS is very close to 1 atmosphere, and it's an oxygen-nitrogen mix close to earth's atmosphere.
- Dylan16807 9y agoA mars mission won't be getting frequent short-hop trips from earth. I would expect the habitats to use reduced-pressure atmospheres with less to no nitrogen.
- Tuna-Fish 9y agoThen everything needs to be made of fire-retardant materials. Reducing the nitrogen content of the atmosphere has little deleterious effects for people, but makes fires easier to start, hotter, and harder to put out.
- Dylan16807 9y agoIf you reduce the amount of nitrogen, and don't replace it with oxygen, it doesn't have all that big of an effect on fires. And in trade it becomes vastly easier to contain the pressure.
- Tuna-Fish 9y agoYes, it really does. The issue is that the inert nitrogen has a really important role in carrying away heat from the flame. Fire is a dynamic reaction where temperature and speed is determined basically by how much heat a set of reagents produce/how much heat is carried away in the waste products. Nitrogen doesn't participate in the chemical reaction, but it gets heated alongside the waste gases, and so it reduces the temperature of the fire. In a pure 0.2bar oxygen atmosphere, anything that would smoulder or burn slowly in standard atmosphere burn rapidly with a bright flame instead, and some things that you'd normally not consider flammable can sustain flame. This is the reason the space station maintains a normal atmosphere instead of a thin pure oxygen one. Conversely, if you double the amount of nitrogen (without reducing the amount of oxygen) in the air, almost nothing burns anymore.
- c3534l 9y agoIf not, maybe we can engineer a breed of worms that can.
- NegativeLatency 9y agoIf you find this interesting you might appreciate the Red Mars series by Kim Stanley Robinson.
- dweekly 9y agoOf course it would turn out that the first thing we could grow and eat on Mars would be rocket.
- JumpCrisscross 9y agoFor the confused, rocket is called arugula in American English [1]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eruca_sativa https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eruca_sativa
- NegativeLatency 9y agoAnd sometimes spelled as roquette
- meri_dian 9y agoIf we are able to conclusively determine that Mars is no longer host to life, should we try to seed the planet with carbon dioxide & methane producing organisms in order to create an atmosphere?
- mratzloff 9y agoThat wouldn't do much good unless we can re-establish the magnetosphere.
- meri_dian 9y agoAh yeah, forgot about that. And restarting the core dynamo seems pretty infeasible regardless or our technological capabilities.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- throwawayaway12 9y agoI think it is still an open (and hotly debated) question on if planets need magnetospheres to retain an atmosphere.
- toomuchtodo 9y agoA magnetosphere is required to shield from charges particles and other harmful radiation.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ethbro 9y ago* also, retain an atmosphere "over long enough timescales" From the MAVEN research papers I've read, we're talking ~5,000 metric tons / yr of atmosphere being stripped. Which is a lot, but not an insurmountable lot.
- 9y ago
- stefantalpalaru 9y agoThere is no point in simulating anything without the toxic perchlorates that pose the biggest problem.
- cjhanks 9y agoI feel like sending earth worms to Mars is like sending pigs to South America. Perhaps there is nothing living there... I don't know. But do we need to have such an imperialist attitude with planets too?
- randyrand 9y agoImperialism is not a bad thing. Successful species spread and thrive. Failed species are extinct -- and we will be too if we don't get off this rock.
- cjhanks 9y agoThat sounds like the mantra of an anthropomorphised virus. But my down-votes seem to suggest it's popular opinion here. I'm just saying there was more to learn from America than "potatoes and corn are good".
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- stanfordkid 9y agoSome things live in a realm "beyond good and evil" and are just pure creation. I think Mars terraforming is one of those things. We are creating an entirely new system within which new goods and new evils might subsist. The entire notion of "Imperialism is bad" is a banal historical platitude in this context.
- posterboy 9y agoI wouldn't judge it that bad. "it" is not a popular opinion, and the downvotes are due to a sensitive topic and a biased crowd if you consider the time of your posting. "it" seems popular because, ironically, everyone else just does not care enough to spread their seeds of wisdom.
- NegativeLatency 9y agoWho knows, we might even manage to make ourselves extinct.
- zokier 9y agoI'll paste in my previous comment about this. The tone is bit harsh, the context was more hypeful > Ugh. I feel like Wamelinks researchs importance is way overblown. Hydroponics has shown that you need no soil to grow plants, so is it really surprising that Mars soil simultant that has been specifically treated to be friendly can sustain plants and worms? Especially when the simultant might not have been very accurate chemically to begin with. Personally I think the first generations will be using heavily hydroponics, and during that period can do actual in-situ experiments that are far more informative than anything we can do here on earth. > Direct quote from their 2014 paper (I couldn't find the earthworm paper, links would be appreciated): > > Our results show that it is in principle possible to grow plants in Martian and Lunar soil simulants although there was only one plant that formed a flower butt on moon soil simulant. Whether this extends to growing plants on Mars or the moon in full soils themselves remains an open question. More research is needed about the representativeness of the simulants, water holding capacity and other physical characteristics of the soils, whether our results extend to growing plants in full soil, the availability of reactive nitrogen on Mars and moon combined with the addition of nutrients and creating a balanced nutrient availability, and the influence of gravity, light and other conditions.
- PinkMilkshake 9y agoIt’s not just about food though, is it? Being able to grow plants on mars is, I would have thought, an important step for terraforming. Also, if we work out which plants kinda work, we might be able to isolate the genes that improve survival and add them to other plants.
- chisleu 9y agoAbsolutely. The far better way to grow is sans-soil. Aero or hydroponically. Even inert grow materials like coco are fantastic and highly reusable. It's not like we are going to be growing outside on Mars anyway. It will need to be under UV LEDs and solar powered. I expect the energy use of reclaiming the water from the air would be more than would be saved by trying to use solar lighting. I like the idea of terraforming mars, but it seems like we are still going to be stuck living in bubbles anyway since it has no core or ability to block the various solar / cosmic waves that would wreck plants and animals and blast away any attempts at building a atmosphere.
- foxhop 9y agoIt's crazy how scientists are researching worms for Mars and yet our scientists in agriculture actively preach practices that compact soil and kill soil biology. Monsanto chemicals and John Deeres tractors are ruining systems that literally self renew. Maybe we should try to work with earth's nature here before trying to emulate it on another planet?
- NegativeLatency 9y agoWhy can't you do both?
- kiwicopple 9y agoMy family are based in New Zealand and make a feriliser that is high in carbon and micronutrients (we use seaweed). Even after pot trials and field trials showing massive benefits we found it nearly impossible to sell to farmers. Generally they are sick of snake oil salesmen peddling the next best product. Farmers mindsets are almost immutable - we even had farmers who used some and saw the anecdotal benefits (worms) and then just switched back to regular SSP because it was what they always did. We had a lot more success with vineyards.
- vadimberman 9y agoCould it be because it is impossible for the farmers to determine long-term effects (e.g. damage to the soil, etc.), and they don't want to risk adopting a potential "time bomb"?
- kiwicopple 9y agoYes it certainly could be that. The margins for sheep & beef farmers especially are quite thin so they are essentially surviving year to year and wouldn't want to risk even a short-term impacts. Although I would argue that some of it is common sense which is eschewed because of the thin margins. In NZ, farmers will annually replace phosphate, nitrogen, and potassium because they know it is lost to produce/erosion/environmental factors. But the same isn't true of 20+ other nutrients that make a healthy soil. Soil is like the human body which has an amazing ability to survive on just bread and water, but that doesn't necessarily mean that's all you should feed it
- simulate 9y agoDid they include perchlorates in the simulated Martian soil? It seems unlikely that they did but I might be mistaken. The big issue with either growing plants on Mars or simply being exposed to Martian dust is perchlorates in the soil: https://www.space.com/21554-mars-toxic-perchlorate-chemicals.html https://www.space.com/21554-mars-toxic-perchlorate-chemicals...