TALES FROM THEFIELD
on mars
KELLIE GERARDI,
BIOASTRONAUTICS RESEARCHER
AT THE INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE
FOR ASTRONAUTICAL SCIENCE
In 2014, I joined a team of six other scien-
tists at the Mars Desert Research Station,
a Utah-based lab designed to mimic the condi-
tions humans would experience on our nearby
orb. One of our missions was to test how well
sorghum and hops—two main ingredients in
beer—might survive in Martian soil. After all,
what’s life on the Red Planet if you can’t enjoy it?
We planted two sets of crops, one in regular
soil and another in a NASA-made compound
that mocks Mars’ dirt at a chemical level. The
seeds sprouted and thrived in both systems,
and the sorghum ones germinated two days
earlier in the faux red clay.Despite these promising results, we can’t say
with certainty that we’d have similar success if
we tried to take root off-world. Our experimen-
tal dirt is a close dupe, but it’s not the real thing.
In particular, the mixture doesn’t contain per-
chlorates, toxic compounds that are present in
all Martian soil. This is why I’m excited about the
new Perseverance rover, which is set to reach
the Red Planet in February 2021. The robot will
extract samples that NASA plans to pick up and
bring home on future missions. Analyzing that
authentic grit could help us figure out once and
for all if happy hour on Mars can be as enjoy-
able as it is on our home planet.