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NASA's Next Frontier: Growing Plants On the Moon
An anonymous reader writes in with news about a NASA project that aims to grow plants on the moon in specially made containers. "In 2015, NASA will attempt to make history by growing plants on the Moon. If they are successful, it will be the first time humans have ever brought life to another planetary body. The Lunar Plant Growth Habitat team, a group of NASA scientists, contractors, students and volunteers, is finally bringing to life an idea that has been discussed and debated for decades. They will try to grow arabidopsis, basil, sunflowers, and turnips in coffee-can-sized aluminum cylinders that will serve as plant habitats. But these are no ordinary containers – they’re packed to the brim with cameras, sensors, and electronics that will allow the team to receive image broadcasts of the plants as they grow. These habitats will have to be able to successfully regulate their own temperature, water intake, and power supply in order to brave the harsh lunar climate."
...watching grass grow.
Ok this is awesome.
Its been on my wishlist for unmanned travel that we'd try packaging up Earth plants and sending them to grow on alien worlds in some way. The Moon is a good starting point - Elon Musk got into SpaceX because he wanted to do it on Mars with a Greenhouse.
Personally I wish we'd just man up and shoot the appropriate organisms into Venus' atmosphere to start the terraforming process.
...it will be the first time humans have ever brought life to another planetary body.
So NASA is finally admitting that it never sent life [Astronauts] to another planetary body. Am guessing they may have sent dead ones in order to be able truthfully say yes we sent astronauts to the moon.
The "coffee can" is a US unit unknown to the rest of the world. We buy our coffee in packets or jars (of differing sizes). How big is a coffee can?
Those majestic plants 'braving the harsh lunar climate'.
You just might end up with something like this.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
From TFA:
This experiment will test whether plants can survive radiation, flourish in partial gravity, and thrive in a small, controlled environment.
We can (and have) test all those things here on Earth. IIRC, NASA successfully grew lettuce in zero-g on a shuttle mission.
The moon is a terrible place to grow plants:
- 13-day/night cycle
- 275 Kelvin temperature variation
- 25 rem/yr radiation with no solar flare protection
- no water
- lunar regolith useless as soil
In other words you have to take the whole environment with you. Growing plants on a scale sufficient to be considered food on the moon is a long way off.
It makes for a good kids public outreach program, but let's be realistic: the moon is basically good for 2 things - a huge radio telescope on the far side, and the 1-50 ppb He-3 in the lunar regolith. By the time we're ready to do those things, robots will be good enough to do it all for us.
They should plant weed and dandelions. It will grow anywhere. Pretty soon the whole moon will be green.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
It's also flat-out wrong on the first point. No, it is not the first time humans have ever brought life to another planetary body, even if by life you read an implication that they mean non-human life.
We've brought all manner of microscopic life with us -- much of it inside or on the surface of us -- when we were on the moon previously. Doubtless at least some amount has been sent as microscopic residue even on unmanned missions. OK, the vast majority of the lunar passengers also came back with us, and it's unlikely any of what we've unintentionally brought along has survived, but to say that we've never brought life to another planetary body? Demonstrably not true.
Think about it. What's needed is a really high (pun intended) profit margin product to drive space exploration. Think how much stoners would pay for pot grown on the moon. Astronomical profit!
Unlike mineral extraction, there is minimal extra-terrestrial processing involved. It's like a sample and return mission, except you don't have to find anything.
Now we can finally fill in item number two:
1) Grow pot on Moon
2) Return it to Earth.
3) Profit!
Why is Snark Required?
This might sound a bit stupid, but in my opinion it is more interesting to see how the soil survives than how the plants do. Most people think soil is dead material, while in fact it is full with activity of bacteria, fungi, insects, earthworms, nematodes and more. Growing anything usefull requires good soil. Once we know how soil biology behaves in Lunar conditions, we might be able to come up with a way to convert Lunar regolith into useable soil.
While regolith ain't soil, it can be used as a basic substrate which hearty weeds wouldn't complain about.