No, not yet. There are ideas to send an automated greenhouse to either Mars or the Moon, or both. Perhaps with a single plant in it. Or just a few. Rather like the experiments in the ISS.
This is a fun one for Mars
It's an artistic concept idea. But there are also actual proposed experiments.
Such as this one that was proposed for Curiosity's successor at one point
NASA May Put Greenhouse on Mars in 2021
They have a big advantage that you can actually, if you take great care, sterilize a greenhouse and the plant inside it. Plants can grow in aeroponics or hydroponics with nutrients supplied, without any microbial life at all. It is actually done like that sometimes on Earth.
So in principle you can send a sterilized seed, sterilized habitat, sterilized water and nutrients, and then grow plants on Mars without any planetary proteciton issues at all. If only you could send sterilized humans in the same way as seeds not needing microbes! But sadly we can't do this with humans.
If we did it on Mars, it's better to start with the Moon I think. Because then - first is easier to monitor, replace, resupply etc. But also - there isn't any risk of contaminating the Moon with Earth life. So we can check to make sure it really does work for planetary protection on the Moon first, that no life at all grows in the container except the plant - especially as there seems no priority reason to send it to Mars rather than the Moon.
If there are any intelligent plant based ETs or ETs without microbes, they are probably the only ones that can go interplanetary visiting without any risk of introducing alien microbes to another planet - so long as they sterilize any microbes they may have accumulated from the last planet they visited.
But sadly we can't do this with humans. Our microbes are essential to us. Even if we could somehow replace all our microbes with microbese that we know can't survive on Mars, that would be safe also, for planetary protection. But we have no idea how to do a thing such as that. Sadly the microbes on humans belong to a very diverse range of species, some of them with extremophile capabilities, and there is no way known to make sure the only microbes are ones that can't live on Mars. Not at present anyway. And probably not for a good many years or decades.
So in principle plants could be our "ambassadors" on Mars, able to grow there - if we can find any reason for doing that - or just for fun, without any planetary protection issues at all. So long as it is done with great care.
Apart from the planetary protection issue though, then we probably are pretty close to being able to do this. The Russians with their BIOS-3 experiments got closest. They could provide nearly all the food for the astronauts from a small plot of just 13 square meters per person. All the oxygen also. It is very promising.
But not yet tested in space. Similar ideas might also work in zero g - or you could use artificial gravity - spin up the section with the plants at least. Plants only need a hundredth of a g to completely change their gene expression, and respond remarkably quickly, within minutes, of change of artificial g.
For more, see Could Astronauts Get All Their Oxygen From Algae Or Plants? And Their Food Also?
Which I've also now made into an amazon kindle ebook
Could Future Astronauts Get All Their Oxygen from Algae and Plants?: And Their Food Also, Robert Walker - Amazon.com
This is a fun one for Mars
It's an artistic concept idea. But there are also actual proposed experiments.
Such as this one that was proposed for Curiosity's successor at one point
They have a big advantage that you can actually, if you take great care, sterilize a greenhouse and the plant inside it. Plants can grow in aeroponics or hydroponics with nutrients supplied, without any microbial life at all. It is actually done like that sometimes on Earth.
So in principle you can send a sterilized seed, sterilized habitat, sterilized water and nutrients, and then grow plants on Mars without any planetary proteciton issues at all. If only you could send sterilized humans in the same way as seeds not needing microbes! But sadly we can't do this with humans.
If we did it on Mars, it's better to start with the Moon I think. Because then - first is easier to monitor, replace, resupply etc. But also - there isn't any risk of contaminating the Moon with Earth life. So we can check to make sure it really does work for planetary protection on the Moon first, that no life at all grows in the container except the plant - especially as there seems no priority reason to send it to Mars rather than the Moon.
If there are any intelligent plant based ETs or ETs without microbes, they are probably the only ones that can go interplanetary visiting without any risk of introducing alien microbes to another planet - so long as they sterilize any microbes they may have accumulated from the last planet they visited.
But sadly we can't do this with humans. Our microbes are essential to us. Even if we could somehow replace all our microbes with microbese that we know can't survive on Mars, that would be safe also, for planetary protection. But we have no idea how to do a thing such as that. Sadly the microbes on humans belong to a very diverse range of species, some of them with extremophile capabilities, and there is no way known to make sure the only microbes are ones that can't live on Mars. Not at present anyway. And probably not for a good many years or decades.
So in principle plants could be our "ambassadors" on Mars, able to grow there - if we can find any reason for doing that - or just for fun, without any planetary protection issues at all. So long as it is done with great care.
Apart from the planetary protection issue though, then we probably are pretty close to being able to do this. The Russians with their BIOS-3 experiments got closest. They could provide nearly all the food for the astronauts from a small plot of just 13 square meters per person. All the oxygen also. It is very promising.
But not yet tested in space. Similar ideas might also work in zero g - or you could use artificial gravity - spin up the section with the plants at least. Plants only need a hundredth of a g to completely change their gene expression, and respond remarkably quickly, within minutes, of change of artificial g.
For more, see Could Astronauts Get All Their Oxygen From Algae Or Plants? And Their Food Also?
Which I've also now made into an amazon kindle ebook
About the Author
Robert Walker
Writer of articles on Mars and Space issues - Software Developer of Tune Smithy, Bounce Metronome etc.Studied at Wolfson College, Oxford
Lives in Isle of Mull
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