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The Martian, a science fiction by Ridley Scott, had a botanist, played by Matt Damon, who discovered a way to grow potatoes on Mars. Since that movie, the scientists have been working on growing potatoes on the red planet which is bringing them a step closer to a fictional reality. International Potato Centre in Peru and NASA have paired together to cultivate potatoes in simulated conditions on earth, similar to the red planet. They eventually want to build a controlled dome that will allow cultivation of the ancient crop on Mars. The team will duplicate Mars like atmospheric conditions in a laboratory, obtaining soil from Peru's Pampas de la Joya Desert which is almost like the soil found on red planet.

"The increased levels of carbon dioxide will benefit the crop, whose yield is two to four times that of a regular grain crop under normal Earth conditions. The Martian atmosphere is near 95 percent carbon dioxide," CIP explained in a recent press release, as reported by CNBC News.

The main objective of this project is not to just help astronauts grow fresh foods on inhabitable planets but to remedy a much bigger problem. CIP says that once their experiment about growing food in harsh conditions is successful, they would be able save millions of lives that are lost due to famine. Seeing the results, there may be authorities that might be motivated to fund the R&D project that will allow plant growth in various regions across the world, especially those that are not suitable for farming, reported BGR

 "How better to learn about climate change than by growing crops on a planet that died two billion years ago?" CIP head of communications Joel Ranck said. "We need people to understand that if we can grow potatoes in extreme conditions like those on Mars, we can save lives on Earth." SETI researcher associate Julio E Valdivia-Silva told the site. "I am excited to put potatoes on Mars and even more so that we can use a simulated Martian terrain so close to the area where potatoes originated," according to International Business Times.