14 DAY TRIAL // Try not to be jealous of the dandelions growing in your garden or the parsley floating on top of your soup, but as it turns out, plants will land on the Red Planet long before we do. Just as long Mars One's dreams for the future come true, that is.
Thus, word has it that, come 2018, the Netherlands-based not-for-profit organization, whose members and supporters aim to establish a human colony on Mars by 2025, plans to send a teeny tiny, self-contained greenhouse to the Red Planet.
The greenhouse will carry seeds of a small flowering plant known as Arabidopsis thaliana. Mars One hopes that, having reached their destination, the seeds will germinate and grow. Thanks to cameras that the greenhouse will be fitted with, we ordinary folks will be able to keep tabs on their evolution.
This greenhouse experiment, whose official name is Seed, was selected from as many as 35 science projects that were proposed for Mars One's mission to fly a robotic lander to the Red Planet and have it reach its target no later than 2018.
“We are really pleased to be the selected project among so many excellent ideas. We are thrilled to be the first to send life to Mars. This will be a great journey that we hope to share with you all,” said Seed team member Teresa Araújo.
As mentioned, Mars One hopes that, by 2025, it will manage to set up a human colony on the Red Planet. The greenhouse that is scheduled to reach this planet in 2018 should help the organization figure out whether its future colonists might be able to grow plants on Mars.
