Scientists grow tomatoes and other greenhouse goodies using “Mars soil” like Matt Damon in The Martian. Botany boffins in the Netherlands have successfully harvested various veggies on simulated Martian soil. The scientists, inspired by the hit sci-fi movie The Martian have successfully grown vegetables using soil from the Red Planet.
21st Century Fox
In the Ridley Scott movie, astronaut Mark Watney, played by Matt Damon, uses his “botany powers” to grow potatoes after he is stranded on the lifeless red planet and awaiting rescue. Researchers in the Netherlands decided to copy his work and harvested tomatoes, rye, radish, pea, leek, spinach, garden rocket, cress, quinoa and chives. That’s almost all the ingredients in a V8 juice! The only failure was spinach, so we won’t be seeing spinach and ricotta pizzas on Mars anytime soon, but we’re sure they’re working on it.
Lead scientist Dr Wieger Wamelink, from Wageningen University, said: “That was a real surprise to us. It shows that the Mars soil simulant has great potential when properly prepared and watered.”
Both soils were supplied by NASA and are designed to mimic the real thing, since getting real Martian soil is a little bit harder than popping to the garden centre. Unlike Watney however, the scientists were not willing to risk eating the Martian veg they had grown, but we’re sure they would have been tasty.
So, when we do finally arrive on Mars, we’ll have tomatoes as good as the ones at home!
Tomato juice would make a great space flight beverage. Discover why right here!
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