Document dated June 22, 2039 at 11:15. Declassified on May 12, 2020.
Why is this a great news?
It is the first food consumed on Mars that actually grew there! Until now our Martian colleagues, could not turn only to food synthesized from spirulina, an earth alga. We will come back to this in a few paragraphs.
Sterile soil
Containing heavy metals, Martian soil makes any food that has grown there unsuitable, so forget the fields in the greenhouse. On-site cultivation can only be done using above-ground crops, either in a greenhouse containing their own substrate, or via hydroponics.
Culture on site is therefore a major challenge.
The genesis
The idea had been considered a few decades ago during the Mars One initiative. Indeed, a student team from the University of Southampton had proposed to send to Mars in 2018 (Yes, a flight was planned this year) greenhouses to grow lettuces.
The #LettuceOnMars mission mainly consisted of sending fully operational and autonomous greenhouses to grow lettuce for the members of the Mars One initiative. Unfortunately this project only came in third place and was therefore not selected for the flight, the Seed project having won first place.
This idea did not fall into oblivion, however, and would rise from the ashes in a much more economical form, but also much more technically difficult.
Spirulina, the quick and "inexpensive" solution
Spirulina was named in 1974 the “best food of the future” by the WHO. Because of this, like Tofu, it can be transformed into a multitude of foods and has fabulous nutritional capacities. However, it presents the same problem as many vegetarian solutions and does not contain, among other things, vitamins B12, so on-site synthesis solutions have been put in place in order to overcome its problems.
We still want to clarify that the “little” expensive implementation of this solution, still required the trip of two Starship from SpaceX, which cost the total of $ 17 million. All funded by Martian Enterprise.
However, this solution made it possible to provide a sufficient and complete quantity of food for close to a thousand people.
The renaissance of salads
During the first five trips of food was sent lead boxes. Each of these boxes containing seeds of different varieties to be grown on site once the problem of soil treatment has been resolved.
Do not believe that no preparation had been done on Earth before, the many rovers and some returns of Martian soil samples had allowed to have a very precise idea of the quality of the soil, and it was not not the quick fix.
The project therefore took several years to emerge and he was chosen to select salads as the first test thanks to its rapid growth. In fact, in only 8 to 10 weeks, mature salads will be available for consumption. These have of course passed tests before explorers have the pleasure of consuming them.
What is certain is that people living on Mars today seem happy to be able to vary their food taste!
Henry Parker, GNN Writer
Sources
You do not have the possibility of accessing all the sources in view of your position in space time. You will find below the valid sources for your period:
- https://www.facebook.com/pg/LettuceOnMars/posts/
- https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2014/sep/12/spirulina-health-food-panacea-malnutrition