Why Not Mars - Hackdot

Re:Why Not Mars by ben_w on Monday January 02, 2023 @02:13AM (#34215237)

I'm not a farmer so I may be way off, but I thought the one thing we had done with vertical farming was beat natural energy efficiency?

Photosynthesis doesn't use sunlight all that well, PV + wavelength tuned LED can turn the same amount of sunlight into more biology.

But! Farmland is dirt cheap, so that's more of a solution in search of a problem than anything else.

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Re:Why Not Mars by 8n4vidtmkvmk on Monday January 02, 2023 @03:06PM (#34222949)

You mean efficiency in terms of the plants absorbing the energy? Probably. But in most parts of the world it's still cheaper to just use more land.

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Re:Why Not Mars by ben_w on Monday January 02, 2023 @03:24PM (#34223167)

Yes to the question.

Also, agreed to the final point.

Plus, the comparison shouldn't be "open farmland vs. PV+LED", it should be "for the resources cost of PV+LED, what can you build in the way of polytunnel or greenhouse?"

Which in turn reminds me of this YouTube Mars botany simulator, whose validity I can't help but doubt, but which is nevertheless moderately interesting: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKhDkilF5o6-Hfsnhn_HFxjJ0...

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