"What 15mm Terraforming Plant Life Do You Use?" Topic

The way I imagine it …

Until terraforming is finally complete on a planet like Mars, and after extremophiles have taken hold, farming will have to be limited to domes and then "wet" craters and canyons:

And farmed plants may not look at all like we know them here on Earth. Genetic engineering may make them glow in the dark, or even have the texture of freeze-resistant codfish or frog meat, depending on the splicing.

Imagine glow in the dark succulents (cacti, like nopales) that taste like fish or frog legs! Yummy!!!

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Your thoughts?

Dan
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I haven't given this much thought. I'm not as focused on Sci-Fi games as you are. Maybe somethings from among the many aquarium plants available?

Something broadleafed for light-absorbing surface area, but a succulent plant for water retention. So more like a prickly pear cactus, but darker in color to absorb more light. maybe all the way to purple in color!

This ignores the lichens, mosses, and fungi that are probably the 1st phase terraformers.

Those might work.

Then again, perhaps they'll just print their food, and shape them into those nice little, colored round and square wafers, like is shown in Star Trek.

Bio-synthesized, nutrient chips, for your dining pleasure.

No artificial preservatives, but tons of artificial color pigments included, to make them more appetizing. With an unrefrigerated shelf life of a full century, and they taste like it too.

Yum!

Well considering my house background… The Pachycereus (the one with the skinny leaves) are genetically engineered as a warning plant for unseen hazards like radiation, thus are bright blue….

But considering that My house background is one that looks like the american expansion into the west. Or new lands you can Drive to….

Dodder, also called witch's hair, is a member of the morning-glory family and is a native parasite! Sucks the life out of other plants.

Modified to choke out any alien plant life, so that our terraforming plants can take over! very small succulents can take over

To someday something like this

Then again, perhaps they'll just print their food, and shape them into those nice little, colored round and square wafers, like is shown in Star Trek.

Bio-synthesized, nutrient chips, for your dining pleasure.

No artificial preservatives, but tons of artificial color pigments included, to make them more appetizing. With an unrefrigerated shelf life of a full century, and they taste like it too.

Yum!

This forum seriously needs a sarcasm indicator.

That's actually what I liked the most about Voyager: Neelix 'assigning' himself the job of Morale Officer (and cook). After 3 years on a sub, I can tell you quite firmly that screwing with the food is a quick way to destroy crew morale!

You'd probably just be growing crops that could be processed into nutrient bars. Like a moss or grass that was genetically modified to grow fast in a harsh environment. Maybe several variations that where different colors. Each one was a specific blend to produce nutrients like one that provides protein or vitamin C. So fields of weird colored grasses that have had fruits and veggies spliced into them. The vitamin c field is bright orange and the protein field is a dull brown. Everything is harvested by robots and grows stupid fast. They blend them all together into gruel or a nutrient bar. Maybe toss in a variant that is the classic green for animal feed.

I'd guess the initial plantlife would be bacteria sprayed over the appropriate areas of the planet, you'd need successive waves of bacteria / lichen and moss as the terraforming took hold. I imagine it would look very much like the tundra, and be even more fragile.

Of course inside the domes / tunnelled out colony "farming" would be more likely of the hydroponic variety: link

Of course, if one was taking a low-tech approach to farming one could utilise a bio-digester to convert a slurry of human waste mixed with water (I seem to recall 8% is the ideal figure) into methane for local power generation. This conversion also kills the nasties that lie within human excrement. The slurry could then be mixed with Martian regolith to form a light sandy soil suitable for use within raised beds within the habitat. You could "terraform" Mars one dump at a time!

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