Growing a Lunch on Mars (GALOM)

Preparations are already underway for missions that will land humans on Mars in a decade or so. But what would people eat if these missions eventually lead to the permanent colonisation of the red planet? Once (if) humans do make it to Mars, a major challenge for any colony will be to generate a stable supply of food. The enormous costs of launching and resupplying resources from Earth will make that impractical.

Humans on Mars will need to move away from complete reliance on shipped cargo and achieve a high level of self-sufficient and sustainable agriculture.

The Growing a Lunch on Mars project will involve students collaborating virtually in teams with Arno dem Toon, specialist in space survival based in Amsterdam Holland, to research which foods could be grown grow on Mars to ensure that a team of 50 Mars settlers would be able to grow enough food to provide a lunch each day.

The students will then grow a range of different foods from seeds under different conditions using different techniques, e.g. hydroponics to assess which foods grow well under different conditions and in different soils.

The Aims of the GALOM programme are that learners will:

·         Work as part of a team or individually to research different foods that could be grown on Mars

·         Work as part of a team test different growing techniques a with different foods that could be used to grown food on Mars

·         Find out how digital technology is transforming career opportunities across the advanced manufacturing, design, engineering, and construction sectors

·         Engage online with professionals, apprentices and HE students from the space, engineering, construction and design industries, who will talk to them about career opportunities and the benefits of higher education, higher and degree apprenticeships across these sectors