Is life on Mars a duckweed diet away? Not quite, but it could advance the cause of space travel – ABC News

Adelaide's River Torrens has, in recent years, earned a reputation for being about as friendly to animal lifeas the planet Mars is suitable for human living.

But the Torrens or, at least, an aquatic plant that iscommonly found on its surface has been recruited for a study into how humans could one day live long and prosper upon the red planet.

Duckweed, also known as water lentil, isbeing touted not only as a partialsolution tothe problem of getting to Mars, but also to the problem of how humans survive there.

"People often mistake it for an algae, and think maybe it's an algal bloom on the water but actually it's more closely related to land plants like wheat and barley," bio-scientist Jenny Mortimer told ABC Radio Adelaide's Stacey Lee and Nikolai Beilharz.

"Rowing clubs are a bit annoyed by it, having to paddle through it, but actually it's a perfectly normal thing, it doesn't release any toxins so it's not dangerous at all."

Associate Professor Mortimer is running a project with PhD students at the University of Adelaide looking at duckweed's many potent properties, and its suitability as a form of sustenance forhuman life and basis of future civilisation.

"If humans want to do long-term space exploration so going beyond the space station, but [also] maybe living on the surface of the Moon or even going to Mars then one of the biggest problems is food, because you just simply can't take everything you need with you," Associate Professor Mortimer said.

"We've done some calculations and if you send a crew of four people to Mars, it's about a three-year round trip, that's 10 tonnes of food and that doesn't even [take] into account trying to make sure the food is nutritiously stable across those three years.

"One solution is that maybe you want to grow some of the food as you go with you, but trying to do that in a small, confined space on a space shuttle is quite challenging so we're looking to different alternatives and duckweed is one of those."

While duckweed may not necessarily conform witheveryone's idea of what's appetising, it is eaten by humans in parts of the world, including south-east Asia.

Dr Mortimer said it has much to recommend it not only is it high in protein and nutrients, it grows fast and tends to take on the taste of whatever environment it has been exposed to, which can be both a blessing and a curse.

"It tends to pick up the flavour of whatever it's been growing in," Associate Professor Mortimer said.

"Someone else who works in the US, he's put a little bit of bacon flavouring in and it took up the bacon flavour."

But Associate Professor Mortimersaid there was no way anyone should be eating it from the Torrens, which has battled pollution in recent decades.

"You can actually [eat it] as it is.I mean, not directly out of the Torrens I don't know what else is in there," she said.

"One of the things we're doing in my group is collecting different Australian strains to compare how they behave and grow."

When scientists talk about making it to Mars, they tend to focus on the logistics of the journey.

Elon Musk once joked that he wanted "to die on Mars just not on impact".

But just as big a challenge as the landingis the aftermath and Professor Mortimer said duckweed could be part of the solution to the question of setting up a colony.

"We're also looking at a way of making other things out of it," she said.

"I'm really interested in using it as a system, so a little green photosynthetic reactor for making other molecules you might need in remote environments or on a space flight, so whether that's pharmaceuticals or even perhaps some types of building material."

While she conceded its use in actual space missions might be decades away, Associate Professor Mortimer said it could help with a more rarefied culinary problem.

Duckweed's capacity to absorb other flavours could again prove useful to counteringmenu fatigue on space missions and preventingweight loss, albeit inzero gravity.

"If astronauts lose weight, it's a huge problem because they are really sort of meant to be performing at the top of their game," she said.

"NASA and this is the same in the military and all sorts of other places they develop these highly crafted menus that are the right amount, of calories for these elite athletes who are astronauts, but people just get bored of eating the same old dehydrated microwave food.

"Sometimes you want something that's fresh or spicy or has crunch one of the most requested up in the space station, when they're allowed to get things from home, is apples because it has that crunch and freshness."

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Is life on Mars a duckweed diet away? Not quite, but it could advance the cause of space travel - ABC News