How to grow vegetables on Mars?

Earth is our planet. We have found it at the perfect balance of everything humans need for their survival, growth, and development.

However, over the years we have had to confront the reality that everything has a ticking clock.

Earth will not have the capacity to sustain our expensive lifestyle forever, constantly providing us all the things for our needs.

In the wake of this knowledge, scientists have taken up the task of trying to find habitable planets for our civilization.

We are looking for planets that can provide us with that adequate amount of resources to live a healthy and happy life.

Our red neighbor, Mars, has proven to be a strong contender for the same.

Yet, the real question remains- for us to live on this planet food is essential.

So how does one grow vegetables on Mars?
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, being larger than only Mercury.

In English, Mars carries the name of the Roman god of war and is often referred to as the "Red Planet".

It is one of the few planets that can be seen in the night sky and I am often seen as one of our closest, most habitable planets.

It is important for us to first establish some things about the planet itself.

Unfortunately, the environment isn’t that welcoming.

It is one 10th of Earth’s mass, quite cold with an average of -50 degrees Celsius, and very desolate.

It has a very thin, carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere that’s about one 90th as dense as Earth’s.

It is approximately 144 miles away from the sun, which indicated that Mars gets about 43 percent intensity of the sunlight that we do on Earth.

However, there is some silver lining. Beneficial carbon dioxide and nitrogen make up about 95 percent and 2.6 percent of the planet’s atmosphere, respectively.

However, without any ozone in the Martian atmosphere, the greenhouse windows would need to block harmful solar ultraviolet radiation.

A few billion years ago, the planet boasted a more hospitable environment, complete with oceans, a temperate climate, and according to some scientists, quite possibly—life.

Since then, the red planet has lost its atmosphere and a lot of its water inventories.

There is currently no water on its surface.

Water (or ice) is present beneath the surface, however, as well as in the planet’s icy polar regions

These harsh conditions make it necessary for all plants to be grown in heated, pressurized greenhouses with significant compensations made for atmosphere, humidity, and water.

Villanova students decided to test growing plants on the planet.

In their greenhouse experiments, they took strenuous measures to create an environment that’s both plant-friendly and similar to what would be found in greenhouses on Mars.

They ensured, that plants received roughly the same amount of sunlight as they would on Mars.

After further research, the students have concluded some important points.

It was discovered by the students that their success rates could be improved with two kinds of enhancements.

These are: augmenting sunlight by using multiwavelength LEDs and loosening the dense MSS by adding potting soil.

Considering all these factors, students were able to eliminate certain vegetables from consideration.

A significant example of this would be that the low light on Mars does not lend itself well to growing plants that require full sun, which include favorites like tomatoes, beans, legumes, corn, or many root plants.

Carrots also don’t cut, as they tend to come out stunted in the clay-like MSS.

Potatoes largely don’t thrive in the simulant soil and low light conditions, but sweet potatoes do a little better.

However, the students found that dandelions would flourish on Mars and have significant benefits: they grow quickly, every part of the plant is edible, and they have high nutritional value.

Some other plants that cut are microgreens, lettuce, arugula, spinach, peas, garlic, kale, and onions.

To grow a vast kind of vegetables seems unlikely, due to lack of sunlight and availability of water.

How we could alter this would be artificially producing light as strong as the sunlight, which seems like a far-off concept right now.

Growing vegetables seem to be a far-off idea that would need careful research and understanding of the creation of artificial biological environments.

Conditions on Mars for humans, let alone farmers, are far from easy.

The difficult planet certainly isn’t a natural home for us, and growing sustenance there would be a complicated task.

Keeping all this in mind, we still cannot completely exclude the possibility of one day successfully creating a vegetable field on the surface of our friendly neighbors.