"Mars Agriculture – Knowledge Gaps for Regolith Preparation" Topic

"…The proposed designs for the settlement of Mars include various approaches for local food production. Food will most likely be based on traditional terrestrial crops to ensure that a variety of cuisines can be cooked for the well-being of the settlers. To farm on Mars, as well as provide an environment for plants and trees, will require establishing soils using the Martian regolith. The presence of (per)chlorates at levels toxic to plants and humans requires remediation of the regolith to remove the (per)chlorates. Prior work indicates that there is a knowledge gap in how to remediate the regolith to make it ready to support various crops for Martian agriculture. We propose a framework of experiments to help bridge the gap between the state of the regolith on the surface and the initial stages of soil creation…"

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Armand

This is how Weyland-Yutani got started, isn't it?

No, Union Aerospace Corporation. (UAC has several bases on Mars… ;-)

Thanks

Armand

Need a seed factory. Sending humans before a basis built is pointless. Send drones. Build the basic structures. Domes, concrete, paving. The Martian regolith is badass nasty – think powdered glass, same nasty with different flavour as Moon dust. Deploy drones to get the regolith processing going. Plant the plants. Build aquariums. Dump in fish. Hatch the fish eggs. The plants grow into a forest under prefab structures. Wheat, cabbage, potatoes, spinach, broccoli, THEN humans arrive once the base is "built" and expansion can really get going.

Good points…

Armand