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One day humanity might settle the Red Planet, but how will we grow food on world more barren than any desert or tundra on Earth?
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Credits:
Farming On Mars
Science & Futurism with Isaac Arthur
Episode 373, December 15, 2022
Written, Produced & Narrated by Isaac Arthur
Editors:
Briana Brownell
Evelyn Orwell
Jason Snyder
Cover Art:
Jakub Grygier https://www.artstation.com/jakub_grygier
Graphics by:
Bryan Versteeg
Jeremy Jozwik
Rapid Thrash
Udo Schroeter
Music Courtesy of Epidemic Sound http://epidemicsound.com/creator
source
Mars foods will be algae and fungus based.
4k is totally not worth the cost to you or the energy bill delivering the content imho. Unless a person pixel peeps, the compression on YouTube, power requirements and incremental benefit of picture quality aren't even close to worth it imho. 1080p for streaming is near the limits of our fovia anyway, there's really no need for 4k almost anywhere but cinema or marketing materials that are bound to be downscaled and compressed anyway.
Cows would be great for Mars, the methane they produce could be put to so many uses
Plant roots build soil. 1:1 of solar energy input to carbon sequestration, if done like trees in an old growth forest. Just saying.
Shrooms.
Grow SHROOMS on Mars. Myconids are very adaptable and even make people happy. I took a trip via shrooms once that brought me to another universe.
Fungi is fun p_O
"keep it in the dark and throw sheeeeet at it"
Where does all the nitrogen needed to grow plants come from?
Wait! I think your mother's birthday is on the same day as mine… We're both on the 14th of December. Right? Or is your mother's bday on the 15th? 🙂
Your mom did good with her son.
If we could only keep that up forever.
The issue with manufacturing meat from cells isn't a texture issue anymore. It's keeping bacterial cells and viruses out of the growth media. Vats of animal cells have no immune system currently. Bacterial cells out reproduce animal cells by a wide margin.
I'm imagining the Red Neck Planet.
Surely a mesh dome using ion propulsion causing atmo to flow in from outside increasing the atmospheric pressure to earth-like.
These sorts of future videos always make me sad. At the age of 53, I doubt I live to see any of this let alone experience it.
Maybe I missed it. But should mention lichen could be useful here. Very tough organism that can turn rock into soil.
Fertilizer kills soil.
The most advanced
Sustainable agriculture
Is called Permaculture.
Permaculture has been used to transform dead
Deserts into productive
Crops land.
With out fertilizers and poison
I think farming on Mars will be hydroponic with some aquaponic adaptations. I hope lab grown meat can be a thing, steak is good.
We can import the biological organisms to fix nitrogen.
Don't forget about us beekeepers. We will have our part to play on Mars with pollination and everyone knows honey is an incredibly sterile and stable food stuffs. Although due to size constraints, solitary bees like mason bees would probably be the better choice for such small operations.
cant even farm on earth without destoying the fkn planet m8
Mars died for a reason. It's condition almost screams dont come here to live.
HBD 🥳 and thanks for sharing🙏👍👌
We only need to grow food on Mars long enough to finish disassembly of the planet for McKendree Cylinders in the Dyson Swarm.
I’ve always wanted to try mars raised shrimp 🦐.
I love this speculative stuff, but personally I don't think we're ready for Mars. Spending money to study the planet so we understand it better when we get there is a thing I can get behind, but before we get to colonize Mars we need to start making headway on fixing the mess we've made of Earth.
Get us a plan to refit the planet to green energy supplies, deal with the horrifically inequal living standards, and curb the proliferation of intraspecies conflict, then I'll start advocating for Mars colonization.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOMMA ARTHUR!
Well, Mars has a 2% humidity in its soil, far better than Death Valley, so it's not that barren. But still I´m a Venus fan, it's far better to be floating above its acid clouds than living on that red freezer, filled with perchlorate and radiation. Plus, crossing paths with possible martian microorganisms that we don't know how would behave in Earth's organisms…It's not a good idea. Thank you for this great video!
Mars missions should be one way until the colony is thriving.
The logo vatmeat was genius
7:40 "the public" will not fund Mar missions, private individuals will pay for their passage. Has the past century taught you nothing? Bureaucracies, professional politicians, and business majors are ineffective, non-creative, and stupid. All caution no vision.
How would you enter or leave a planetary rotational city from the outside? A series of circular conveyors at increasing speeds?
Considering the available solar power, harmful radiation, gravity, reduced atmosphere, and travel time; which is a better next step for us in space? Mars or the moon?
2:47 the better question is, does it have what plants crave ?
Artificial wombs? Did I misheard? 😀
Why is Mars red? On Earth, iron precipitated from the ocean once microbes started using the poisonous oxygen. So hmmm… what happened on Mars?🤔
<– Patiently waiting for the nuclear fusion video remake
19:30 By the 2060s i reckon lab-grown meat will be even more common than "real" meat
lab-grown meat is already real and you can eat it in Singapore
The biggest hurdles arent technological , the actual problems are about bringing production to scale and , of course , the regulatory burden by goverments
But , I think it will be used extensively in Space colonisation , much cheaper to grow meat on mars than bringing the whole animal there, less water , space and energy intensive too…
23:20 and of course you were gonna adress it , but your info is a few years out of date
Maws
Could you harvest silicon from Mars to make solar panels and leds?
I'll be honest if there was a rocket to Mars that was completely privately funded and I had to sign a weaver saying that I had a lager than 50% of dying on the way there and there was no coming home afterwards with a provided handgun and suicide pill provided, I'd take it in a heartbeat.
Farming on Mars will be impossible without massive inputs from Earth, to the point it will be more sensible to simply import food from Earth. Boutique nonsense aside, as per usual. The Biosphere Project on Earth showed how impractical the concept is, theory guides but experiment decides. There is no such thing as "alien soils" unless there is life there already, soil is rich with organic life and chemicals. Martian regolith is not soil and likely never can be. Hydroponics is not a magic bullet, many plants grow very poorly under such a regime.
No CCP or Putin’s Russia government participation in our Moon or Mars Bases.
Fungus could be grown too? The veggie meat alternative Quorn is a form of fungus and brewed up in giant vats I believe. It might have higher protein than most plants, though you’d probably want both.
Geothermal energy could maybe an option for power and heat too? Scientists long thought Mars was geothermally inactive but have recently discovered this was wrong and there are some volcanos.
I think anyone who goes to Mars will die. So, like the 👽 Aliens have done, we should send only AIs and bots.
I read somewhere that Dandelions can grow on mars with little help.
difference between dirt and soil is… life. Soil is an active ecosystem of microbes and fungi, transferring nutrients and breaking things down across the strata.
Great episode and Happy Birthday to Issac's mother!
You should rethink your assumptions about sending animals to Mars, considering that plant based diets are much healthier and that animal cost per pound is about 10 times mores heard but much more important is that animals agriculture takes massive more space, both decreasing agriculture efficiency dramatically.
Isaac, thank you for all of your videos. For the past four years I've been listening to you while working on projects. Several E-bikes, a camper van, gold prospecting equipment, lye soap, a smelting furnace, and a gourmet mushroom grow are just a few examples of things I've made while listening to your series. I can't be the only person who works on projects while listening to you, and it makes me wonder how many things have been built and accomplished with your series playing in the background. Cheers to you, sir.
One day, people who are turning Mars into a new home for Earthlife will sing Dave Mallett's "Garden Song" this way:
Inch by inch, row by row, gonna make this garden grow
Work the soil and the slow 'till we make it fertile ground
Inch by inch, row by row, God bless these seeds I sow
Mars warm them from below, 'till the rain comes tumbling down
Digging frost, crushing stone, Gonna make this world our own
Fertilize it with our bones, Put our life into the land
Mirrors shine, comets fall, Mars awakens at our call
Lots of work, but worth it all for a planet made by hand
Inch by inch, row by row, gonna make this garden grow
Work the soil and the slow 'till we make it fertile ground
Inch by inch, row by row, God bless these seeds I sow
Mars warm them from below, 'till the rain comes tumbling down
Awful dry, awful cold, and the soil is awful old
Superoxides won't unfold 'till you talk to them just right
But we endure, we persist, old Mars just can't resist
Life works like an alchemist with water, air and light
Inch by inch, row by row, gonna make this garden grow
Work the soil and the slow 'till we make it fertile ground
Inch by inch, row by row, God bless these seeds I sow
Mars warm them from below, 'till the rain comes tumbling down
The rain will fall on Mars, and the crops will grow, and Martians will gather and sing the old songs, and remember the people who created them, and the people who preserved them and carried them to new worlds, along with Earth's other seeds.
Because Octavia Butler was right: It is the destiny of Earthlife to take root among the stars.