I know, I saw Matt Daemon grow potatoes on Mars in an in-flight documentary called "The Martian".
/sbin/mattd
Can I get in on the joke? :)
Study: Potatoes can grow on Mars
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Re: Study: Potatoes can grow on Mars
#42But how do they simulate Martian gravity?
They grew them under microgravity conditions in orbit, so they probably aren't going to have trouble coping with 2/5ths gravity.
Re: Study: Potatoes can grow on Mars
#43They didn't mention whether they tried to simulate the radiation levels plants would experience on Mars in their experiment. I don't know whether that would change the results.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22520-mars-is-safe-fr... I didn't know the answer so I googled it. Apparently it isn't that high. "Readings from NASA’s Curiosity rover suggest radiation levels on the Red Planet are about the same as those in low Earth orbit, where astronauts hang out for months on the International Space Station."
> radiation levels on the Red Planet are about the same as those in low Earth orbit
... which coincidentally is where the experimental potatoes in the article were grown.
Re: Study: Potatoes can grow on Mars
#44But how do they simulate Martian gravity?
The box full of potatoes is falling from a great height with a fairly large parachute? That wouldn't really give the potatoes a very long time to demonstrate growth, though.
Re: Study: Potatoes can grow on Mars
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
/sbin/mattd
Can I get in on the joke? :)
They're making a joke about the misspelling of Matt Damon. "Daemon" is a computing term [0] and /sbin/ is a folder that you might want to put a Matt Daemon in. (Also, daemons are often named with a "d" at the end, like "etcd" or "mattd".)
Re: Study: Potatoes can grow on Mars
#46Re: Study: Potatoes can grow on Mars
#47Why exactly did this experiment require a satellite? For biological purposes Martian gravity is probably closer to Earth gravity than to microgravity, and all the other conditions could be reproduced for cheaper and at larger scale in a ground laboratory. This smells of a publicity stunt to me.
Martian gravity is lower than earth gravity, and if the test was run in earth like gravity there could be concerns that that variable would have an effect. By conducting the experiment in lower gravity than Mars's, it's hard to doubt that martian gravity would pose a problem.
Re: Study: Potatoes can grow on Mars
#48Why exactly did this experiment require a satellite? For biological purposes Martian gravity is probably closer to Earth gravity than to microgravity, and all the other conditions could be reproduced for cheaper and at larger scale in a ground laboratory. This smells of a publicity stunt to me.
> This smells of a publicity stunt to me.
I don't know, some people are irrational about plants and farming. Sure we've grown all kinds of plants in orbit before, but maybe potatoes need to commune with the Earth in order to grow. Turns out that potatoes obey the laws of physics and chemistry as well.
Re: Study: Potatoes can grow on Mars
#49is that you Mark Watney?
Re: Study: Potatoes can grow on Mars
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm pretty sure Martians measure temperature in Celsius.
Celsius is equally arbitrary to Fahrenheit. No, Martians measure in Nano Yocto Planck Degrees above Absolute Zero, I hereby dub that unit the Plancktigrade.
Celsius at least has a family of units that mesh with it precisely. To heat one cubic centimetre of water up 1°C takes 1 Joule. It also essentially weighs 1 gram at normal temperatures.
How many BTUs does it take to heat up one cubic foot of water by one degree Fahrenheit?