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Growing potatoes on Mars: Ecological footprint

By November 25, 2015Illustration
Potatoes-Martian-Movie

If I can grow enough potatoes, I won’t starve. But how large an area do I need to plant?

It’s a simple question in a complex and desperate situation. In the movie The Martian, an astronaut on a Mars mission is thought to have been killed in an accident and left on the red planet during an emergency evacuation by the rest of the crew. Mark Watney, the unlucky astronaut played by actor Matt Damon, must figure out how to survive. With four years to go before the next scheduled mission will arrive on Mars, but only enough food to last for one, a key part of survival will be avoiding starvation.

In his video log, Watney surmises, “So, I’ve got to figure out a way to grow three years’ worth of food here—on a planet where nothing grows. Luckily, I am a botanist. Mars will come to fear my botany powers.”

In his quest for food, Watney discovers potatoes that were set aside for Thanksgiving dinner. This is the only food that he can attempt to grow to supplement the remaining food rations. He carefully calculates how much area he needs to grow potatoes and ends up with 126 square meters of Martian cropland.

Since potatoes are renewable resources, Watney calculates that harvesting the larger potatoes and re-planting the smaller ones will provide 400 potato plants, enough calories to keep him going until he can be rescued.

Starting to sound familiar? It sure does to us at Global Footprint Network! 

– See more at: http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/blog/thanksgiving_potatoes_anyone_ecological_footprinting_in_the_martian_movie#sthash.oovSFXR9.dpuf

Illustration by Alexandre Magnin.

For more information about Ecological Footprint, you can watch our videos about the Ecological Footprint and Earth Overshoot Day.

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