If you’ve watched The Martian you know how difficult it is to grow food on Mars. Almost nothing about the Red Planet makes it a hospitable place for agriculture. Even if you could coax a plant to emerge out of the nutrient-bereft soil, it’s just a matter of time before the sproutlings succumb to either the freezing temperatures or a total lack of accessible water.
Mark Watney—played by Matt Damon in the film—stays alive by eating potatoes grown in an airtight dome and fertilized with his own poop.
Watney’s experiment has a lot in common with vertical farming. Not the human poop so much, but the idea of growing plants in
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