> As humans prepare to blast off to Mars, there is still the question of what they’ll eat once they colonize the red planet. Scientists who have traveled here to the Peruvian desert say they have the answer. Potatoes.
> Researchers at the Lima-based International Potato Center and scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration are studying which type of potato could be best suited for extraterrestrial farming to support a human settlement on Mars. If everything goes as planned, the Martian colonies could be munching on french fries, chips and mashed potatoes one day.
> “It’s got to be a Martian potato that tastes good,” Julio Valdivia-Silva, a Peruvian astrobiologist with NASA, said while surveying the reddish-brown desert on a trip to collect soil. “It’s a big challenge to take a living organism somewhere else. We’ve never done this before.”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/nasa-really-is-trying-to-grow-potatoes-on-mars-1460560325
>>38669
This is really stupid because every other country is trying to go to the moon while the woefully underfunded US wastes resources trying to go to mars alone. At this rate a multinational corporation is going to be the first on mars and the Chinese and Indians are going to have a 20 year head start on everyone on the rare earth and He3 mining they will be doing on the moon.
>>38669
Potatoes
Lots of shit recycled as compost
Botanist
Matt Damon
there, NASA knows what it needs.
>>38670
As much as I want Mankind to go to the Moon, any Moon success will lead to permanent visibility of our antics from Earth and if we ruin the Moon nearly as bad as we've ruined Earth, well, we'll lose the best thing about the Moon - it's white glow.
>>38670
in space, nobody cares if you poo in loo.
>>38670
Damn, China is going to take all the space.
>>38670
A reminder that if Obama didn't cancel the programme when he was elected, America would be back on the Moon by 2018.
>>38729
>be back
you mean go for the first time
It's true that some famous people have bought lands in the moon?
>>38752
see http://www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/ourwork/spacelaw/treaties.html
tl;dr nobody can legally sell real estate on any moon or another planet, by both US(and EU) law, and UN treaty
>>38744
Kek
>>38669
Mark Watney pls
>>38669
>2001+15
>still being a planetary chauvinist
fuck mars let's just build some colonies
>>38670
Mars is a much bigger prize but also much more difficult for obvious reasons
Mars is the gateway to the outer solar system
though the Moon is the gateway to Mars
>>38686
What if space is 1 giant loo?!
>>38669
so you get to go to a desert planet with almost no attractive women or anything to do and subsist on a diet of potatoes? and its probably cold all the time too. anyone who signs up for this shit is a hero
>>38879
>so you get to go to a desert planet with almost no attractive women or anything to do and subsist on a diet of potatoes? and its probably cold all the time too. anyone who signs up for this shit is a hero
So, basically you're saying it'll be Russians.
>>38916
and a cheeki breeki to you to my friend
>>38669
>International Potato Center
kek
>>38879
I'd do it.
That feel when could only go to Mars before I'm old if I'm in the first wave of pioneers, aka the group most likely to die
>>38916
think of all that unlicensed vodka
>>38950
I'm reminded that the ISS is just one big can of regurgitated coffee and that's all it pretty much is good for.
>>38669
there is actually an international potato center and people have jobs there.
>>38989
It sounds too important to send it to Mars though...
People made fun of the aliens of "Signs" for trying to conquer a planet with water when it was harmful to them. but humans are trying to conquer a planet that we can't even breath on it.
>>38989
there should be, since this edible tuber is vastly grown all over the globe, and it gets your stomach full. Eat it - and you wont die of starvation.
>>39064
There are many labs and centers all over the world storing and researching all kinds of seeds, plants etc
>>38671
You and I are the only ones who got that reference.
>>38669
The irony is that Mars is actually a big giant potato of it's own.
>>39033
They weren't aliens, they were demons, gibson was a priest, he got his belief in god back, he blessed the water. The film was made by M Night Shamadong, how are you even this stupid.
>>38850
holy shit kek
>international colony on Mars established
>start growing potatoes on mars
>suddenly Russians everywhere
>all other countries leave mars to escape drunken Ivans slav squatting everywhere
>>39139
Well it is the Red planet
>>39188
"Dear Comrades on Earth, please send women,"
>>38669
I think the real question should be what would be a good back-up crop should the potatocaust happen again.
>>39274
Hazelnuts.
>>39080
No you aren't, it was just a mediocre movie that only served to perpetuate "le so nerdyy" pop culture.
>inb4 b-but I was talking about the book
He specifically mentioned Matt Damon
>>38790
>Mars is the gateway to the outer solar system
>though the Moon is the gateway to Mars
Its brilliant
>>38744
So some are actually convinced we did NOT go to the moon and all that was a cover up? Am i too young to know this??
>>39404
Not him, but what was so bad about it? It wasn't like it was making dated references to internet memes or some shit.
>>38744
nice meme, faggot. You'd better go and put your tin foil hat back on so the ebil gubberment's super mind control radio waves don't get you some more.
>>39505
its pottery.
>>38744
You do know what peer reviewed scienctific journals are right? If you understood the methods behind getting there and had the resources to do it, you could go there yourself. The burden of proof is on you kid.
>>38675
One of the only times I've been afraid in a movie was when in the time machine they split the moon
Humanity is dumb enough that I could see it happening
>>38669
Let's see.
One third of the sunlight - check
Cold enough to freeze over every single night - check
Very little water - check
Very little carbon - check
I'd say "Pipe dream"
The problem is, Humans cannot eat electricity. They need hydrocarbons and oxygen. Oxygen is abundant in the rocks on Mars but good luck finding the carbon.
Call me paranoid but i have a hard time believeing any of the shit they present to us
>>41106
Atmosphere is mostly CO2.
Plants get their carbon from the air, not the ground.
So that isn't really a problem.
The rest of it is true.
I guess it'd have to be in a greenhouse with Martian air and soil in order for it to be useful at all.
>>41106
Actually,
Potato plants does not need that much sunlight, they thrive better in the cold, does not take a lot of water, really like atmospheric carbon, which mars atmosphere have a shit load of. That's why they want to use potatoes.
>>41106
pretty sure they are designing these potatoes for INSIDE a martian greenhouse, not outdoors lol
you want to teraform a shithole like mars with plant life you have to start with algae and lower order life
then wait a couple million years
>>39603
But space travel is a meme :^)
>>41462
Ah, you're just shitposting
Nevermind then
>>38916
SNAP
>>41262
>then wait a couple million years
With today's technology maybe, who knows what we'll be capable of 50-100 years from now.
It's like someone from the 1800s wondering how long it would take to fly to the Moon in a hot air balloon, he's tackling a 20th century problem in a 19th century mindset.
mmmm... taters be tasty
>>38669
>Researchers at the Lima-based International Potato Center
>Researchers
>International Potato Center
wat
