One of Wamelink’s greenhouses with rye and pea plants. Musk was not impressed: ‘The money would be better spent investigating fish farms on Mars.’ Photo Guy Ackermans Billionaire Elon Musk plans to live on Mars. He has approached Mars horticulturalist and WUR researcher Wieger Wamelink to figure out whether anything other than vegetables can be grown on the planet. ‘Nobody likes vegetables,’ says the tech billionaire.
Wamelink has gained an international reputation for his research on crops grown in Martian soil. He has successfully grown carrots, peas and tomatoes. But they just happen to be the products space pioneer Musk hates. ‘Nobody likes vegetables,’ says Musk.
Now the richest man on Earth has asked Wamelink to investigate whether cows, salmon and tuna could survive on Mars. Musk eventually intends colonizing Mars through his space company SpaceX. But he’d prefer it if he had steak and sushi to hand there. Musk would also like doughnuts and diet coke to be on the Mars menu.
‘It would be good if these things could be produced on location,’ says Musk when asked. ‘Doughnuts taste best when they’re fresh, and it’s simply not practical to fly down to Earth every time you need to restock on coke.’ Not sustainable either, but apparently the billionaire doesn’t have much feeling with that topic.
Wamelink has been playing ‘hard to get’ so far. He sees the filthy rich American as a possible sponsor, but is not a sushi fan himself.
It’s not practical to fly down to Earth every time you need to restock on coke
To get used to the idea of a lengthy trip in a spaceship, the ecologist has been spending time as of last week at the new Spacefarming exhibition in the Evoluon museum in Eindhoven. ‘It’s not a real spaceship but it does at least look like one.’
Musk seems determined to get Wamelink involved in SpaceX. He was recently spotted in Eindhoven in the vicinity of Evoluon, chewing on a sausage roll. Musk said he was ‘on a mission’. ‘I’d like to die on Mars —not during the landing of course. But if I’m going to live out my days on the planet, I will need to have some decent food. That’s where Wieger comes in.’
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