(TDB) - A group of scientists and viticulturists from Georgia are researching which grapes would suit Martian soils and how best to cultivate grapevines there in the hope that one day colonists could make their own wine on the red planet.

The IX Millennium project, based in Tbilisi, is cultivating grapevines fit for Red Planet agriculture pods, as reported by the Washington Post.

Optimistically, NASA hopes that a manned mission to Mars could happen by 2034, while entrepreneur Elon Musk has said that his company SpaceX could launch its first manned mission to Mars in 2024.

Now, a team of academics and researchers are drawing on Georgia’s 8,000-year long winemaking heritage, and its state-run grape library in Saguramo, which grows 450 local varieties and 350 foreign varieties of grapes for research purposes, to identify the most suitable grape varieties for the planet’s conditions.