Martian Salad

Martian Salad| Putting the 'Art' in Artemis

Putting the 'Art' in Artemis

Your challenge is to create an artistic work to communicate, inform, or inspire others about humanity's road to Mars. Your art may be in any form, including (but not limited to): drawing, painting, sculpture, computer generated 2D or 3D, music, film, music video, written or spoken word, dance, and textile.

Summary

This project provides a recipe of a salad, which representing the history of space exploration to the Mars. We use red konnyaku, which is colored by ferric oxide or Mars' red.

How I Addressed This Challenge

Food is the most familiar form of expression in our daily life. We use a bowl of salad as a media to express our milestones made toward the goal on the Mars. We hope our recipe would inspire people, especially younger generation, to find connections to space exploration.

How I Developed This Project

Red konnyaku was the start line. This konnyaku is colored by ferric oxide, which is also a cause of the Mars' red. The coincidence of substance of red konnyaku and the Mars' soil made us focusing on cooking. Then, Phoenix lander's image showing decayed ice in the dig soil gave us clear image of mixing red konnyaku with something white and fresh, which turned out to be daikon radish. Later, we added two more milestones on our story; 3D printer and Veggie onboard the International Space Station. We selected red romaine lettuce and mizuna, both has been grown at Veggie. We also chose mashed potato for imitating 3D printing technology.

Note: Red konnyaku is a kind of yam cake traditionally consumed at Omihachiman city of Shiga, Japan, for centuries.

How I Used Space Agency Data in This Project

Phenix lander's image of decayed ice in the hole (https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/multimedia/pia09344.html) is the most inspirational. We developed a recipe somehow reproduce this image.