Spuds in space: is growing potatoes on Mars key to surviving climate change? | Dan Collyns

Like in Ridley Scott's The Martian, Nasa is running tests to see if potatoes could survive the climatic extremes of the red planet

Growing potatoes on Mars may sound like a fantasy straight out of sci-fi drama The Martian - in which a marooned astronaut survives on the red planet by tending spuds. But it's also the focus of an experiment by the US space agency, Nasa, which is teaming up with the Peru-based International Potato Centre (CIP) to see if potatoes could be grown in such harsh conditions.

"The Martian is completely possible," says astrobiologist Julio Valdivia-Silva, the principal scientist working on the experiment in Peru.