It's crazy how scientists are researching worms for Mars and yet our scientists in agriculture actively preach practices that compact soil and kill soil biology. Monsanto chemicals and John Deeres tractors are ruining systems that literally self renew.<p>Maybe we should try to work with earth's nature here before trying to emulate it on another planet?
But can they reproduce in the soil at the same range of air pressure found in habitats, with the same gravity / gas mixture? Can they still reproduce after 50 years?
I'll paste in my previous comment about this. The tone is bit harsh, the context was more hypeful<p>> Ugh. I feel like Wamelinks researchs importance is way overblown. Hydroponics has shown that you need no soil to grow plants, so is it really surprising that Mars soil simultant that has been specifically treated to be friendly can sustain plants and worms? Especially when the simultant might not have been very accurate chemically to begin with. Personally I think the first generations will be using heavily hydroponics, and during that period can do actual in-situ experiments that are far more informative than anything we can do here on earth.<p>> Direct quote from their 2014 paper (I couldn't find the earthworm paper, links would be appreciated):<p>> > Our results show that it is in principle possible to grow plants in Martian and Lunar soil simulants although there was only one plant that formed a flower butt on moon soil simulant. <i>Whether this extends to growing plants on Mars or the moon in full soils themselves remains an open question. More research is needed about the representativeness of the simulants</i>, water holding capacity and other physical characteristics of the soils, whether our results extend to growing plants in full soil, the availability of reactive nitrogen on Mars and moon combined with the addition of nutrients and creating a balanced nutrient availability, and the influence of gravity, light and other conditions.
If we are able to conclusively determine that Mars is no longer host to life, should we try to seed the planet with carbon dioxide & methane producing organisms in order to create an atmosphere?
Did they include perchlorates in the simulated Martian soil? It seems unlikely that they did but I might be mistaken.<p>The big issue with either growing plants on Mars or simply being exposed to Martian dust is perchlorates in the soil:
<a href="https://www.space.com/21554-mars-toxic-perchlorate-chemicals.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.space.com/21554-mars-toxic-perchlorate-chemicals...</a>
So it might work! Can we boostrap a real, nutrient-rich regolith and ecosystem from scratch? That would be some amazing terraforming - and some major value for mankind.<p>And here I thought The Martian's most unrealistic part was growing the potatoes.
I feel like sending earth worms to Mars is like sending pigs to South America. Perhaps there is nothing living there... I don't know. But do we need to have such an imperialist attitude with planets too?