Cool article but I think they need a huge NASA like chamber for emulating Mars surfaces conditions, with air, pressure, radiation, and soil conditions. Getting anything, even bacteria to live in those emulated conditions would be huge news.

I had dessert moss in a fancy pants restaurant once. Once.

Man, that title. They grew everything in sand. Regolith is filled with concentrated salts, and there’s no liquid water that we know of. At best, this experiment shows that if your inedible moss in a flower pot is briefly exposed to actual Martian conditions, it might survive when you bring it back inside.

So, which locations on Mars’ surface are the most hospitable for this moss? (considering radiation, temperature and water levels)

Also, is a highly irradiated monoculture going to be a stable O2 producer, or is the species going to experience some mutated spinoffs?

Probably a simpler way would be to just start-the-reactor.

Theorists predict that a particular moss can survive on Mars. Scientists await the experimental opportunity to test that prediction.