Man’s plans have their sights set on the possibility of inhabiting other planets. Research in the area of food is advancing the development of space food and possible food crops on Mars.
Laia Ribas, researcher at the Institute of Marine Sciences of the Higher Center for Scientific Research (ICM-CSIC), an expert in sustainable aquaculture, explains to Efe Agro that when humans conquer Mars they will consume vegetables and small portions of fish and chicken.
Ribas is an expert in sustainable aquaculture and has been studying the possibility of developing fish farming on Mars for three years.
He explains that this is a “space aquaculture” project that is still “in a very embryonic phase”, which saw its first approaches in the 70s.
The specialist was tasked with designing a city on Mars for one million inhabitants and making a proposal to supply these people with food.
This is the project of a city called Nüwa, whose inhabitants will feed primarily on vegetables. The scientist explains that 50% will be obtained from orchards and 20% from microalgae, which “grow very quickly and are very nutritious, also for fish,” she quotes. Efe Agro.
While the animal protein will be obtained from fish and chickens, which will be raised on Mars, which represents 4% of this system. They also plan to make up 10% of insects, 1% of other living organisms and 15% of animal protein from laboratory-grown meat, says Ribas.
Water as the main element for cultivation
To achieve these advances in nutrition, water is needed, which will be obtained from the poles of Mars, and from the layers below the surface.
Explain that the water will be used in a circular way, to be able to reuse it, since it is a limited resource.
Fish will be grown with this water, it is “relatively easy to filter,” and later the water will be used to water the plants. In addition, it will help protect the fish from solar radiation, “which on Mars is very high.”
Researchers estimate that on Mars there is about 30% of what there is on Earth.
Advances in breeding a model fish
The research studies the behavior of zebrafish, widely used for experimentation in science. Ribas comments that in a settlement on the red planet, due to the high levels of salt concentration, fish that have a greater tolerance to salinity would have to be raised.
The researcher participated in the mission Hypatia Iwhich simulated the living conditions of Mars in the Utah desert, United States, and in which several female scientists from different disciplines took part with the aim of giving visibility to women in science.
Keep reading:
. Proteins from microbes: the space food proposal of a Finnish company
. Algae, insects and laboratory-grown meats: science and the food of the future
. Agricultural crops on the Moon: France’s ambitious bet for the future
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