Human waste may help feed Mars astronauts

(Credit: NASA/Unsplash)

Traveling to Mars will not be an easy or safe journey, says Grace Crain.

“This is what we do as humans,” Crain says. “We are curious and we want to explore and understand other worlds, if it’s the moon, the bottom of the ocean, or Mars.”

Crain, a researcher at ETH Zurich, is hoping to develop an ecosystem that could provide food, drinking water, and clean air to astronauts on a space station or to the inhabitants of a Moon or Mars base.

In this podcast episode, she explains her work and why she chooses to use human urine and feces to fertilize her plants.

Source: ETH Zurich