Mars Grown

Aquaculture can turn sterile space rocks into fertile soil.

TIMOTHY A. SCHULER

The prospect of lunar outposts and human colonies on Mars raises a host of landscape-related questions, from how to evaluate the significance of extraterrestrial landscapes to how to design self-sustaining food and waste systems. Benz Kotzen, a professor of landscape architecture at the University of Greenwich, investigated the latter in a pilot study and public exhibition called Feeding Mars, the results of which were published in the journal Ecocycles earlier this year. The surfaces of Mars and Earth’s moon are made up of regoliths, gravel-like fines that are devoid of organic material. To test the material’s viability as a planting medium, Kotzen used a grow tent—like what “somebody would buy to grow cannabis”—and two versions of a Martian simulant “soil.” A selection of vegetables and herbs were planted in both…

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Landscape Architecture (Digital) - 1 Issue, November 2024

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