Farming In Space

By: Laurie Bedord

As NASA plans for its first manned mission to Mars in the mid-2030s, the humans who will inhabit the planet may not be considered astronauts but farmers. “The round trip to Mars generally takes about four and one-half years if you add in six months on the surface,” says Bruce Bugbee, a botanist at Utah State University. “Theoretically, it’s possible to bring four years’ worth of bag lunches, but that would be super expensive.”

It’s also risky to rely on a lightweight resupply rocket, because it can take up to 210 days to arrive. “To be efficient, inhabitants need to eat local, which means we need to find a way to produce food on Mars from recycled wastes,” he explains. “If we can’t, we are not going to be able to live on the Red Planet.”