Cress Seeds Grown in Moon Dust Raise Hopes for Lunar Crops (theguardian.com) 34
The prospect of growing crops on the moon has edged a little closer after researchers nurtured plants -- some more successfully than others -- in lunar soil for the first time. From a report: Scientists planted thale cress seeds in moon dust brought back by three Apollo missions and watched them sprout and grow into fully fledged plants, raising the potential for astronauts to farm off-world crops. But while the plants survived in the lunar soil, or regolith, they fell short of thriving, growing more slowly than cress planted in volcanic ash, developing stunted roots, and showing clear signs of physiological stress.
"We found that plants do indeed grow in lunar regolith, however they respond as if they are growing in a stressful situation," said Dr Anna-Lisa Paul, a molecular biologist at the University of Florida. Thale cress, or Arabidopsis thaliana, is a small flowering plant related to broccoli, cauliflower and kale. "It's not especially tasty," Paul added. The experiments are the first to investigate whether plants can grow in lunar soil and follow an 11-year effort to obtain the rare material. Because the soil is so precious, Nasa loaned only 12g of it -- a few teaspoons -- to the researchers who conducted the tests. Scientists have long wondered whether the moon could support crops, but with space agencies now planning to return humans to the surface, and potentially build lunar settlements for visitors, the question has become more pressing.
"We found that plants do indeed grow in lunar regolith, however they respond as if they are growing in a stressful situation," said Dr Anna-Lisa Paul, a molecular biologist at the University of Florida. Thale cress, or Arabidopsis thaliana, is a small flowering plant related to broccoli, cauliflower and kale. "It's not especially tasty," Paul added. The experiments are the first to investigate whether plants can grow in lunar soil and follow an 11-year effort to obtain the rare material. Because the soil is so precious, Nasa loaned only 12g of it -- a few teaspoons -- to the researchers who conducted the tests. Scientists have long wondered whether the moon could support crops, but with space agencies now planning to return humans to the surface, and potentially build lunar settlements for visitors, the question has become more pressing.
2012 (Score:2)
and potentially build lunar settlements for visitors,
Everyone laughed at Newt Gingrich during 2012 Presidential Campaign when he announced that he wanted to colonize the Moon.
But I also think they were laughing at him for other reasons.
At any rate, it seems like this experiment was a net failure and using moon dust as agricultural substrate is not feasible.
Perhaps another more hardy crop could take root in that grey shit but I doubt it.
Re: 2012 (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: 2012 (Score:1)
Let's send Matt Damon (Score:4, Funny)
He'll science the shit out of it.
Makes sense but why bother (Score:5, Interesting)
I would imagine regolith to a plant is just an inorganic, inert substrate, similar to growing in coco-coir where it's just a medium for roots to hold onto and all the nutrients are going to come from supplementing the water.
Basically it's a different version of hydroponics which is what we will obviously use to grow crops on the moon. No organics in the soil means no organics. You're going to have bring those with you no matter what. If we can get a source of water on the moon that will be the most important factor rather than flying it up there.
There's sunlight on the moon, If you have water and food for the plants then why bother growing in the soil? We already know hydroponics works.
Re:Makes sense but why bother (Score:5, Interesting)
I would imagine regolith to a plant is just an inorganic, inert substrate, similar to growing in coco-coir where it's just a medium for roots to hold onto and all the nutrients are going to come from supplementing the water.
Another area to consider is the physical structure. https://www.esa.int/Science_Ex... [esa.int]
"Lunar dust is made of sharp, abrasive and nasty particles... Miners on Earth suffer from inflamed and scarred lungs from inhaling silicate. On the Moon, the dust is so abrasive that it ate away layers of spacesuit boots and destroyed the vacuum seals of Apollo sample containers. Fine like powder, but sharp like glass. The low gravity of the Moon, one sixth of what we have on Earth, allows tiny particles to stay suspended for longer and penetrate more deeply into the lung."
I wonder (1) when the roots spread through the inorganic inert substrate, do the sharp edges actually damage the roots as they grow? (2) do tiny vibrations of the plants cause them to rub against sharp edges? (3) does airbone regolith abrade the leaves or stem?
Re:Makes sense but why bother (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is that good soil isn't just made up of angular particles. It really needs clays and organic matter. The clays act as an ion exchange medium, allowing the soil to retain nutrients. The organic matter retains water and reduces compaction. Then there's the nitrates, potassium, phosphate, and trace elements the plants need. Finally, there's the fungi and bacteria which decompose the organic material. All these things would need to be shipped from Earth.
In the short term hydroponics might provide a stopgap, using tumbled regolith as a support medium. But it would take a long time to build up a decent soil.
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I assume there's chemicals other than just organics that plants get from the soil, not to mention gene pathways that we don't know about that might get triggered by particular types of soil.
As for hydroponics, I'd be worried about nutrients they need, if we could do it in actual lunar dust that might be a lot more economical, especially if we compost and start building organic matter into the soil.
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Not quite inert - surface minerals will slowly wear/dissolve from the rock into the water. And I think at least some plants can directly attack the rock for nutrients. Or maybe that's just lichens.
There's also whatever volatile chemicals are in the regolith to consider - astronauts noted the burnt-gunpowder smell that accompanied moon dust into the lander, and generally speaking things with a pronounced scent are chemically active.
Finally, there's the mechanical properties to consider - growing through raz
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Plants can grow in almost anything as long as they can absorb moisture, and have a supply of nutrients (read: dissolved minerals) which a) doesn't lack any essential nutrients, and b) with concentrations of those nutrients within reasonable range. Optimum / acceptable ranges differing from species to species.
No reason lunar regolith couldn't serve as the source for those nutrients. Maybe regolith from different places, processed mechanically or chemically, and mix the dissolved minerals as required by wh
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It's worth noticing that they only had a couple of tablespoons of soil to work with.
My suspicion is that if they had a larger sample they could have tried a bunch of different approaches and find one that would work well.
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Because not all plants grow in hydroponics.
E.g. you have a hart time to grow wheat or maize.
moon kids (Score:5, Funny)
"Thale cress for dinner AGAIN?"
Well at least it's now a known problem (Score:2)
This is actually an improvement, over all the people that just wave their hands and assume space colonization will be easy peasy like Star Trek.
Now we have growing plants as a stumbling block that has to be cleared.
There is still the ability to breed people and other animals in 1/3rd (Mars) and 1/6 (Luna) Earth gravity.
I haven't seen any productivity numbers on astronauts in low G/Vacuum to see how hard it will be to actually construct and maintain civilizations on Luna or Mars.
There is also the health prob
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The plant stress is most likely because of the abysmal phosphate levels in the soil.
Of the sites sampled, apollo 14 samples had the highest phosphate content, but it was less than .5%
Phosphate is a necessary mineral component in maintaining cellular ion transport, and membrane integrity. In mammals, it is necessary for strong bones and teeth.
To grow plants on the moon, would require artificial processing of regolith to extract phosphate, and concentrate it for agricultural use.
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I don't doubt that , that is a problem. I would doubt very highly it's the only problem.
soil is not the problem (Score:2)
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The minerals on the moon are glass forming.
In theory, you could just build an enormous glass dome using solar sintering methods.
Aside from the near nonexistent nitrogen up there, there is an abundance of mineral oxygen.
Since there is also a lack of phosphate, sending both elements together as ammonium phosphate salt (anhydrous) would go a long way.
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There is a difference between transparent glass, mostly made from silicon dioxide or in-transparent glass, like smelted and cooled down rock, aka obsidian etc.
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Since the rotation of the moon takes about four weeks you'd definitely need the LEDs. And the transparent panels would probably radiate heat too easily to be a good idea at night. (Also they'd need to be rather polished for day time use, to avoid overheating.)
HOWEVER, I don't think this is a real blocker. You'd need to support the astronauts while they were setting things up, and during that period you could accumulate various organic wastes that you could use to fertilize the soil when you got around to
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That's a really good point about the waste from astronauts. Fecal sludge is rich in nitrogen, though that nitrogen must be balanced by a lot more carbon to make good compost/soil. Plants get the majority of their carbon from CO2, but soil still needs it. (To be honest I'm not sure why, but I assume it's to feed soil microbes and to reduce osmotic pressure on roots. Soil microbes (and indeed soil) are optional but helpful for locking up nutrients and delivering them as excrete waste, or even for transporting
All they need is fertilizer. (Score:2)
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
This story ran on the local CBS radio station yesterday, but honestly, people have been using feces and urine for fertilizer since the beginning of time. There're ways to bio-deactivate it fast too like fry it in the sun using mirrors or magnifying glasses.
Since they're trying to sustain a thriving population, all they need is some livestock and some humans to provide all the necessary fertilizer to continue growth.
CO2, Water, O2, Nitrogen, doodoo and peepee is all you need
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You don't want to kill the biologicals in the poop. They will kill one another off in the process of turning the poop into soil. The saying goes pretend a rabbit lives in your shitter and just throw your compostables (veg cuttings) for it to eat. How you implement this in space is up to you but commonly people use coco coir or peat moss in their composting toilets. If you aerate it then it composts a lot faster. After a year of only casual aeration and composting, human crap turns into soil that you can pla
colonization issues (Score:2)
A number of posters have gone on here about radiation, pressure habitats, gravity, etc. They conflate Moon and Mars problems. They
mention how it's not going to be like Star Trek (!?!) and wailing about how there are no solutions to the many challenges involved.
Yeah, it is really hard, and nobody has been studying these issues and working out solutions for the last 70 years. We have no idea at all how to live in low gravity, and we especially haven't done any biology experiments on the ISS or with Mars prob
Re: colonization issues (Score:1)
Moon farming? (Score:1)
Just put another strip mall on the moon. That's it, fucking ruin it as well.
Why bother? (Score:2)
Why bother? We all know that Matt Damon's shit will make plants grow anywhere,
Can't we 'make' moon dust? (Score:2)
12g isn't much to work with..
Given we know the composition of moon dirt/dust, can't we just simulate it if we're planning to try this?