[zokier]

I'll paste in my previous comment about this. The tone is bit harsh, the context was more hypeful

> Ugh. I feel like Wamelinks researchs importance is way overblown. Hydroponics has shown that you need no soil to grow plants, so is it really surprising that Mars soil simultant that has been specifically treated to be friendly can sustain plants and worms? Especially when the simultant might not have been very accurate chemically to begin with. Personally I think the first generations will be using heavily hydroponics, and during that period can do actual in-situ experiments that are far more informative than anything we can do here on earth.

> Direct quote from their 2014 paper (I couldn't find the earthworm paper, links would be appreciated):

> > Our results show that it is in principle possible to grow plants in Martian and Lunar soil simulants although there was only one plant that formed a flower butt on moon soil simulant. Whether this extends to growing plants on Mars or the moon in full soils themselves remains an open question. More research is needed about the representativeness of the simulants, water holding capacity and other physical characteristics of the soils, whether our results extend to growing plants in full soil, the availability of reactive nitrogen on Mars and moon combined with the addition of nutrients and creating a balanced nutrient availability, and the influence of gravity, light and other conditions.

[PinkMilkshake]

It’s not just about food though, is it? Being able to grow plants on mars is, I would have thought, an important step for terraforming.

Also, if we work out which plants kinda work, we might be able to isolate the genes that improve survival and add them to other plants.

[chisleu]

Absolutely. The far better way to grow is sans-soil. Aero or hydroponically. Even inert grow materials like coco are fantastic and highly reusable.

It's not like we are going to be growing outside on Mars anyway. It will need to be under UV LEDs and solar powered. I expect the energy use of reclaiming the water from the air would be more than would be saved by trying to use solar lighting.

I like the idea of terraforming mars, but it seems like we are still going to be stuck living in bubbles anyway since it has no core or ability to block the various solar / cosmic waves that would wreck plants and animals and blast away any attempts at building a atmosphere.