It goes without saying that permanent human settlements on Mars will need to grow their own crops, and there is a considerable body of literature that speaks to these issues. The need for farm animals should also be investigated. While human waste will certainly be used ("Because it's there!") to fertilize the Martian regolith, it also presents health concerns which will either need to be addressed by sewage treatment systems, or by exposure to the ambient environment, in order to eliminate pathogens. Sewage treatments systems will be expensive to transport, and an unknown period of exposure to Martian conditions will be required to render human waste safe for reuse. Selection of an animal species to accompany humans to Mars could address these concerns. The optimum Martian farm animal will have the following characteristics:

1) is well characterized under laboratory conditions.

2) is small, and is therefore easy and inexpensive to transport to Mars.

3) has a short gestation period and a high number of births per pregnancy, therefore breeds rapidly from a small initial stock.

4) produces good quality manure.

5) requires low maintenance (fastidious, self-cleaning).

6) consumes most of the vegetable material that is inedible to humans, thereby accelerating the composting process and reducing the need for biomass processing equipment.

7) poses a near-zero health risk to humans.

These qualities describe Oryctolagus cuniculus, the European or domestic rabbit.

This paper briefly reviews the history of the rabbit in space flight and suggests a program of future missions to study its adaptability to powered flight, microgravity and Mars gravity. Possible roles for the rabbit in Mars colonization are discussed. Preliminary results of experimentation with growing food in Mars soil simulant JSC Mars-1 enhanced with rabbit feces are also reported.

Utilizing Martian Resources