26. Imagine trying to grow food on Mars.
If we want to consider building a civilization on Mars, we may want to step back into our history books and look at the necessary ingredients that societies need. Ingredient number one? Food. People’s most basic need, for nourishment, has to be met before they can begin to settle down into cities and develop a civilization.
Plants on Earth require sunlight to create energy, but Mars receives only a fraction of the Earth’s sunlight. So even if soil and atmospheric conditions were adequate for growing plants, we would have to engineer a solution to their photosynthesis problem. And no, we couldn’t just bring a whole lot of protein bars to Mars. We would run out before even arriving. Building a sustainable Martian colony would require a sustainable, self-perpetuating food supply.