Growing food on Mars is going to be something humanity has no choice but to get right when we inevitably visit the red planet. Sure, explorers could survive on MREs for a while but eventually, we will need to grow our own crops on the planet.
Today, condiment and bean maker, Heinz, announce that it had successfully grown tomatoes in conditions designed to emulate those on Mars. The firm worked with a 14-member team from the Aldrin Space Institute at Florida Tech in order to conduct the experiment.
Soil similar to that found on Mars was recreated and the temperatures and water conditions on the red planet were mimicked as well. The seeds used were those used by Heinz to grow the tomatoes it uses for its tomato sauce.
“Before now, most efforts around discovering ways to grow in Martian-simulated conditions are short term plant growth studies. What this project has done is look at long-term food harvesting. Achieving a crop that is of a quality to become Heinz Tomato Ketchup was the dream result and we achieved it. And working with the Tomato Masters at Heinz has allowed us to see what the possibilities are for long term food production beyond Earth,” said leader of the team at Aldrin Space Institute, Dr Andrew Palmer.
We’re under no doubt that this was a PR stunt by Heinz, but we have to admit it’s a rather cool PR stunt.
Growing food on other planets is as important as having water on those planets, especially if humanity hopes to expand its footprint across space.
Unfortunately the scientific studies conducted in relation to this experiment have yet to be published but they have been submitted. That means we don’t have the finer details about how the soil was created, what issues the team bumped into and other nuances that would’ve been nice to read. We’re going to wait for those studies before heaping praise upon Heinz though as the devil is in the details.
What we do find notable, that Heinz doesn’t mention in its press release at all, is that this study could help inform how to grow crops in areas on Earth where we currently can’t grow crops. This in and of itself would be worthy of investigation but we suppose “Heinz Tomato Ketchup Marz Edition” is a better and gets more eyes looking at your brand.
Unfortunately you can’t buy Heinz Tomato Ketchup Marz Edition right now but maybe one day when humanity has colonised the red planet, our great-great grandchildren will be slathering their hotdogs with tomato sauce because as everybody outside of the US knows, tomato sauce goes great on a hotdog.
