MODELING OF LONG-TERM RECLAMATION PROCESSES ON MARTIAN REGOLITH FOR SUSTAINABLE MARTIAN AGRICULTURE

To successfully launch and maintain a long-term colony on Mars, Martian agricultural systems need to be capable of sustaining human life without requiring expensive deliveries from Earth. There is a need for more studies on this topic to make this a feasible mission. This thesis aims to study from a high level one such agricultural system, specifically examining the requirements and flow of Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium required to sustain a given human colony size. We developed a Microsoft Excel based model that relates human nutritional needs to the amount available in food crops and in turn the amount of Martian soil required for agriculture. The model works by inputting the number of humans, and then utilizing the built-in calculations and datasets to determine how much of each nutrient is needed to meet all nutritional needs of the colony. Using that information, it calculates the amount of plants needed to supply the nutrition and then calculates the amount of nutrients that would be taken from the soil. It compares the Martian regolith to the nutrient uptake, accounting for inedible biomass from the plants and human waste that can be added to the regolith. Any deficiencies are used to determine if and how much fertilizer should be added to the system initially and over time. Using the total amount of plants and the number of harvests, the amount of Martian land required for sustaining the colony is computed. These results can be used as a building block to enable the successful design of an agricultural system on Mars.