Theoretical Aspects of Food Production on Moo...

Theoretical Aspects of Food Production on Moon and Mars Surface

Author Name : Shreya Mane

ABSTRACT With humankind reaching out to create sustainable habitats beyond Earth, the crucial issue of food supply assumes fundamental importance. We provide an overview of the current state of food production and agriculture, as well as the obstacles and opportunities that lie ahead for future Moon and Mars colonies, in this review study. Space research is concentrating on the development of bioregenerative life support systems (BLSS) intended to generate food crops based on in situ resource utilisation (ISRU), allowing to reduce terrestrial input and recycle organic wastes, in order to make crewed missions to the Moon or Mars viable. One of the main questions in this regard is whether native regolith’s are suitable for plant growth and how adding organic matter from crew waste affects their agronomic performance. Producing consumable food effectively on Mars using the in-situ resources—soil, water, nutrients, and solar radiation—remains a basic barrier for human missions there. Mars's high salinity and poor nutrient content make it unsuitable for direct use in the propagation of food crops. Therefore, for long-term missions on Mars, strategies to increase the amount of nutrients in the soil and desalinate salty water must be developed. Growing crops on their own will be necessary if humanity is to build a base on the Moon or Mars. Using regolith from Mars and the Moon is one option. NASA has created regolith simulants since these regolith’s aren't available for use in plant growth studies