/sci/ - Science & Math

One idea i've had for plant growth is to avoid the use of domes since they're vulnerable to atmospheric weathering and make the people going into them and the palnts growing within have to be exposed to quite a bit of radiation. Instead of having them in domes,you build your greenhouse underground and take sunlight to it using fiber-optic cables, which are much easier to produce on mars than a large, pressure-rated transparent dome, don't expose the plants to any significant amount of radiation, and let you gain the advantage of underground radiation shielding while still being naturally lit and do not need a dedicated power-grid draining source of artificial light like if buried plants wre lit solely by LEDs. you could also modify the system with back-up LEDs if a dust-storm blocked off most sunlight for some time.