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Browse the article What if I went to Mars for a year to study the planet, how much food and water would I have to take with me to survive?

What if I went to Mars for a year to study the planet, how much food and water would I have to take with me to survive?

by Marshall Brain

How much food and water would I have to take to Mars to study it for a year?

Another way to phrase this question would be to ask, "How much does a person eat in two years?" A trip to Mars is supposed to take six months to get there and six months to get back. So if you plan to stay a year on the planet to conduct your research, you're looking at a total of two years for your interplanetary trek.

A typical male who weighs 200 pounds and is getting some exercise needs the following on a daily basis:

2,500 calories
83 grams of fat
60 grams of protein
25 grams of fiber
A wide assortment of vitamins and minerals

A typical woman requires less of everything, so this way we know we're covered.

Michael Matisse/AFP/Getty Images
You'll need a lot more than what can fit into these grocery bags to survive a year on Mars.

We can assume that the food can be supplemented with vitamins and minerals (either mixed in or as tablets), so there's no need to worry about that part of the equation. The whole problem comes down to calories, protein, fat and fiber.

If you want to be a minimalist about it, you can get your calories from white sugar, your fat from vegetable oil, your protein from protein powder and your fiber from bran. In this case, each person on the two-year journey would need:

602 pounds (274 kilograms) of sugar
133 pounds (60 kilograms) of vegetable oil
96 pounds (43 kilograms) of protein
40 pounds (18 kilograms) of fiber

If you formed all of those ingredients into bars or kibble, you would need about 880 pounds, or 400 kilograms, of food per person. When you buy dog food at the grocery store, a typical large bag holds 20 pounds. So you would need 44 large dog-food-sized bags to keep one person alive for two years.

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You'll also need a lot more water than this.

The other thing a person needs is water. On most space missions, water is a by-product of electricity production in fuel cells, so it's not a big concern. Nutritionists recommend that you drink at least eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day. Let's say you might be a tad thirstier. So for a two year mission, a person would need about 456 gallons of water.

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