[meteorite-list] NASA May Put Greenhouse on Mars in 2021

[Mendy.Ouzillou]

Just watched an old Dr. Who episode about that very project. Did not turn out well ...

Mendy Ouzillou

On May 8, 2014, at 4:44 PM, Ron Baalke via Meteorite-list <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com> wrote:



http://www.space.com/25767-nasa-mars-greenhouse-rover-plant-experiment.html

NASA May Put Greenhouse on Mars in 2021
By Mike Wall
space.com
May 6, 2014

Plant life may touch down on Mars in 2021.

Researchers have proposed putting a plant-growth experiment on NASA's 
next Mars rover, which is scheduled to launch in mid-2020 and land on 
the Red Planet in early 2021. The investigation, known as the Mars Plant 
Experiment (MPX), could help lay the foundation for the colonization of 
Mars, its designers say.

"In order to do a long-term, sustainable base on Mars, you would want 
to be able to establish that plants can at least grow on Mars," MPX deputy 
principal investigator Heather Smith, of NASA's Ames Research Center in 
Mountain View, California, said April 24 at the Humans 2 Mars conference 
in Washington, D.C. "This would be the first step in that - we just send 
the seeds there and watch them grow."  

The MPX team - led by fellow Ames scientist Chris McKay - isn't suggesting 
that the 2020 Mars rover should play gardener, digging a hole with its 
robotic arm and planting seeds in the Red Planet's dirt. Rather, the experiment 
would be entirely self-contained, eliminating the chance that Earth life 
could escape and perhaps get a foothold on Mars.

MPX would employ a clear "CubeSat" box - the case for a cheap and tiny 
satellite - which would be affixed to the exterior of the 2020 rover. 
This box would hold Earth air and about 200 seeds of Arabidopsis, a small 
flowering plant that's commonly used in scientific research.

The seeds would receive water when the rover touched down on Mars, and 
would then be allowed to grow for two weeks or so.

"In 15 days, we'll have a little greenhouse on Mars," Smith said.

MPX would provide an organism-level test of the Mars environment, showing 
how Earth life deals with the Red Planet's relatively high radiation levels 
and low gravity, which is about 40 percent as strong as that of Earth, 
she added.

"We would go from this simple experiment to the greenhouses on Mars for 
a sustainable base," Smith said. "That would be the goal."

In addition to its potential scientific returns, MPX would provide humanity 
with a landmark moment, she added.

"It also would be the first multicellular organism to grow, live and die 
on another planet," Smith said.

The 2020 Mars rover is based heavily on NASA's Curiosity rover, which 
landed in August 2012 to determine if the Red Planet has ever been capable 
of supporting microbial life. Curiosity has already answered that question 
in the affirmative, finding that a site called Yellowknife Bay was, indeed, 
habitable billions of years ago.

NASA wants the 2020 rover to search for signs of past Mars life, and collect 
rock and soil samples for eventual return to Earth. But the space agency 
is still working out the details of the robot's mission - for example, 
figuring out what instruments it will carry.

NASA received 58 instrument proposals for the rover during its call for 
submissions, which lasted from September 2013 until January of this year. 
Final selections should be made by June or so, NASA officials have said.

Curiosity totes 10 instruments around Mars, so the 2020 rover may end 
up with a similar amount of scientific gear.

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