Now You Can Buy Fake Mars Dirt for $20/Kilogram. Obviously You'll Want to Know if Potatoes Can Grow in it

By Matthew Williams October 5, 2018
Now You Can Buy Fake Mars Dirt for $20/Kilogram. Obviously You'll Want to Know if Potatoes Can Grow in it

"The simulant is useful for research as we look to go to Mars. If we are going to go, we’ll need food, water and other essentials. As we are developing solutions, we need a way to test how these ideas will fare... You wouldn’t want to discover that your method didn’t work when we are actually there. What would you do then? It takes years to get there.”

Matthew Williams

Matthew Williams

Matt Williams is a space journalist, science communicator, and author with several published titles and studies. His work is featured in The Ross 248 Project and Interstellar Travel edited by NASA alumni Les Johnson and Ken Roy. He also hosts the podcast series Stories from Space at ITSP Magazine. He lives in beautiful British Columbia with his wife and family. For more information, check out his website.