Topic: Growing Lettuce on Mars

[Sirgod]

Where is that one type of tree that grows upside down? I seem to recall a whole forest of these guys, It seems there roots are still in the ground, But the foliage Grows towards the Earth instead of upwards towards the sun.

sorry If that's Vague.

stephen

[Stormbringer]

OK I get your meaning. Over evolutionary time scales the genetic limits for growth limit would be selected out and they would all evolve bigger. Such an effect would happen almost instantly for trees as mechanical and structural engineering principles more than genetics determines some of thier hieghts. They get too big they can't feed thier crown. They get too tall they colapse under thier own wieght or get blown over etc. the low gravity would allow them to grow taller than earth constraints would and I say that for certain trees that would result in a single genration. As thier genes are not what limits them.  

[Stormbringer]

there are several that are like that. A few naturally and a few that were bred for it. Many of the "weeping" varieties of trees do this and most of those are specially bred varieties.

[Sirgod]

Good point, My friends family still has a weeping Vrity that grows Fresh Cherry's about this time of year. Still the very idea that Vegitable matter has a chance there...

Amazing. a few square thousand Miles of Green Vegitation and voila, we have a breathable atmosphere for us in a way. as Long as Nitrogen and Oxygen doesn't bleed out into space.

stephen

[Stormbringer]

In my" lets build a planet thread" someone cited 26 million or more years for oxygen bleed away from mars given it's present physical parameters. But realistically they are talking about a green house because of factors such as temperature and radiation. But yes the fact that a plant couldotherwise survive and thrive is astonishing.

[Stormbringer]

But you should see the rabbits, Ba-Da-BUMP!

[Ravok]

 Thanks again for the info. I love these posts!!  

[Praxis]

The problem with growing plants on mars is how cold it gets at night.  It's a bit chilly by day even in the warmest parts, and at night it's well below freezing.  You'd have frost every morning.

This might be good for plants like Persimmons (sp?) that ripen after frost though

Sure, a greenhouse would help keep the heat in, but there would be less heat than on earth (due to more distance from the sun) for the greenhouse to trap.  Maybe plants that thrive in cold weather here would survive in a greenhouse there.

[IKV Nemesis D7L]

Now to do it in Martian soil and gravity.  

[Stormbringer]

Of course it would have to be heated (lol) no plant I'm aware of can survive at 125 (or more) degrees below zero. The real news here was that the atmospheric pressure and gas mixture of Mars supports earth plants without genetic modification. The soil; unless it contains toxins (and as far as I know it does not) would quickly become earthlike due to bacteria and decaying plant matter. IOW nothing more need be done than is done by hobbeist gardeners to ammend the soil. After a while the soil ammendment would probably be self sustaining as a full ecosystem develops. Gravity, so long as some is there, is not an issue.  Plants mostly use gravity to determine up and down. There may be structural changes but I believe small less massive plants are less dependant on gravity as an engineering factor.

[Ravok]

 This is just staggering to me, The implications for Terraforming And atmosphere production........!!! I really don't know what to say.
 We need to stop killing each other get allong, and be out there where we belong!!!!.  

[Stormbringer]

It could be done even now. Unfortunately the vast bulk of humanity, even in developed countries, have no drive or vision concerning this sort of thing. Until attitudes about it change we will continue to creep along at less than a snails pace. Yet perhaps the seeds of change are being sown in the form of the X prize and the nascent commercialization drive for space. will eventual move this from the realm of dreamers and visionaries to the common thoughts of the majority. When the world at large no longer views it as an empty fantasy it will happen.

[Stormbringer]

I found one of them in one of my plant catalogs. I can get the name and ordering info if you like. It is a type of Bao bob tree from Aftrica. However if it is offered in nursery catalogs then it will grow here. A tree that is not supposed to grow here like the Brazil Nut tree i'm going to see if that is true or not. It is one of the only cash crops that is collected entirely from the wild as it is not easy to cultivate. Propagation is possible however because I've seen seedlings growing in pots.
 

[Stormbringer]

Of course the above thought brings up the argument against keeping the colony sterile. It cannot be done if soil based gardening is done. The soil needs bacteria, molds, fungi, and even critters like worms to be ammended into true living "earth." The alternatives hydroponics and just importing bulk food are not very attractive if mars is ever to be more than a research outpost. We will have to "contaminate" the pristine environment in order to conquer it.

[Ravok]

 I wonder because of them finding Martian meteors here, That the reverse has happened on Mars and contamination has already happened. Anyway does any body know if the probes sent so far have been sterile?If not it has probably happened already.  

[Stormbringer]

Probes are supposed to be sterile but the viking landers were contaminated and now have bacteria happily eating thier insulation. This has been reported in releases from NASA and has resulted in the tightest clean room standards for any probes since then.

The metoer probably did not contain living organisms but rather what are disputedly called fossils. The same sort of thing could happen from earth but is not as likely as stuff coming in from the outer (relatively speaking) system due to the escape energy needed to go away from the sun rather than towards it. If the energy were applied all at once it would most certainly vaporize the would be earthling meteor heading to Mars. However it could happen incrementally by successive perturbations or gravity assists from planets or asteroids or whatever.

Bacterial spores can survive in space. Otherwise there would be none to eat the insulation of the viking probe. However it is the trip into space that such a meteor would have to take that it is unknown that microbe spores could survive.

[Ravok]

 I remember reading a article about one of the probes having a problem with contamination, But i could not remember which.
 Thanks again for the info i can't get enough of it.  

[Stormbringer]

I'm not certain but it may also be true of the left behind portions of the LEMs as well. I dunno how they would tell. And obviously they would be anerobic.

[Ravok]

 The ones on Mars eating the insulation blew me away!! I would love to see what they evolve into. In acouple of Billion years.  

[Stormbringer]

If the little bugger's ever make the transition down into the soil then we can say the terraforming has already begun! Of course there *may* already be martian microbes there. If so I'd like to see what the differences in the DNA is like. A close similarity would be harder to explain as parallel evolution and would argue a common origin for both sets of DNA. Say the organic material from comets? The archea order of microbs might have been originally space farers themselves.