Terrestrial planetary plants: Essential preparations for interstellar migration

Abstract

Interstellar migration offers great potential for expanding human habitable space. As a powerful entropy-reducing system, plants convert simple, disordered chemical elements into complex, ordered organic macromolecules. They are expected to grow successfully on some planets and meet the essential nutritional and medical requirements for future interstellar migration. Taking Mars as a model planet, we analyze the basic physical, chemical and biological laws of plant growth on the terrestrial planet and propose terrestrial planetary plants (TPPs) for future terrestrial planetary agriculture (TPA). Biotechnological improvement of 25 TPPs candidates screened from 450,000 plants would reduce the dependence of interstellar migrants on farmland, poultry, livestock and hospitals, thus achieving self-sufficiency in food and medicine on Mars and other terrestrial planets. The TPPs are expected to break the 10 % rule in traditional food chains and provide new insights into enhancing agricultural production and food security on the earth.