Scientists Grow Plants in Soil from the Moon. Lunar Farming Could Be Next.

The Apollo astronauts faced a lot of challenges in their time on the moon, but having enough to eat was not among them. The longest any of the crews spent on the surface was the three days logged by Apollo 17 in 1972, and even in the astronauts’ tiny lunar module, there was enough room for the shrink-wrapped, pre-packaged provisions they’d need for such a brief camping trip. The next time around, though, things will be different. As part of NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to return American astronauts to the moon after a half-century hiatus, crews won’t be coming just to visit, but to stay, establishing a long-term presence in permanent lunar bases. That means not carrying all of the crews’ food along, but growing at least some of it on-site—using the moon’s regolith, or soil, itself as a growth medium inside lunar greenhouses. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The question, though, is whether the dry, sharp, glassy, soil, bathed for epochs by cosmic radiation and solar wind, can support plant growth anything like the rich, loamy soil of Earth. The answer, according to a new study published in Communications Biology, is maybe. For the first time, researchers attempted to grow plants in lunar soil brought back by the Apollo crews. And it turns out that success depends on where exactly on the moon you do your planting. The concept of extraterrestrial farming was widely popularized in Andy Weir’s book The Martian, in ...
Source: TIME: Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Uncategorized healthscienceclimate Space Source Type: news