Our Rationale for this Project Why build a cold frame on a mountain? To extend our Mars Colony Project! Colonists on Mars or the Moon will have to grow plants for food & oxygen, and compost waste. The White Mountain Research Station is the most Mars-like place we can easily get to. It is bitterly cold most of the year, is very dry, has strong winds, and the air is about 2/3rds as thick as it is at sea level.

We are under no illusions that growing food in space will be easy! It takes at least 700 square meters of cropland to support one person on Earth -and that's without any meat, fish, milk or eggs.

Students will design plant growth and composting experiments using the cold frame for classroom assignments, science fair projects, etc.

Perhaps some day we’ll build one like it for the Haughton Mars Project on Devon Island, in the Canadian arctic…

If this sounds crazy, we have distinguished company:

• A NASA scientist, Dr. Christopher McKay at the NASA Ames Research Center, has proposed a plan to grow flowers on Mars, using Martian soil.
  
  
• A Columbia University professor named Dickson Despommier wants to build a 30-story skyscraper in Manhattan (some of the word's most valuable real estate) and use it to grow vegetables. He calls it a vertical farm.
  
  
• There is already the Arthur C. Clarke Mars Greenhouse on Devon Island, Nunavut, Canada, and several greenhouses in Antarctica, including the McMurdo Greenhouse. They grow salad greens.

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