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NASA's Next Frontier: Growing Plants On the Moon

Posted by samzenpus on from the to-boldly-grow dept.

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."

18 of 193 comments (clear)

  1. As exciting as... by Schrockwell · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...watching grass grow.

    1. Re:As exciting as... by d3m0nCr4t · · Score: 4, Funny

      Reminds me of the R.E.M. song: If you believe, they put a plant on the moon, plant on the moon...

  2. Awesome by Electricity+Likes+Me · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Awesome by Thanshin · · Score: 5, Funny

      Personally I wish we'd just man up and shoot the appropriate organisms into Venus' atmosphere to start the terraforming process.

      I agree.

      And as appropriate organisms, my vote goes for: Lawyers, politicians and lobbyists, in that order.

    2. Re:Awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      I suggest that we put lobbyists before politicians on that list, otherwise we will end up with a brief period where we have lobbyists with no natural target, that could be ugly.

    3. Re:Awesome by Jade_Wayfarer · · Score: 4, Funny

      Egads, man, just think what they'll do to poor Venus! It won't be terraforming, it would be terracide!

      --
      Absence of proof != proof of absence.
    4. Re:Awesome by TapeCutter · · Score: 4, Informative

      We don't have any such organisms, Venus suffered a major runaway greenhouse, it has virtually no hydrogen, it's oceans boiled and radiation blew the hydrogen into space over time. It's now deader than Mars, and we don't have the technology to resurrect it.

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    5. Re:Awesome by Type44Q · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And as appropriate organisms, my vote goes for: Lawyers, politicians and lobbyists, in that order.

      They'll need clergy to minister to their spiritual needs...

    6. Re:Awesome by foobar+bazbot · · Score: 3, Informative

      It would have to travel 4 miles an hour over every possible type of terrain. Better to just live in orbit.

      Or just skip the terraforming and live in huge floating bubble-cities. An Earth-standard atmosphere turns out to be a lifting gas in Venus's atmosphere, and there's a region of Venus's atmosphere where both pressure and temperature are confortably Earth-like, and it's got nice steady winds to carry your bubble around the planet much faster than the surface rotation -- depends on latitude, but on the order of 100 hours.

      "All" you need is to engineer a nearly-closed biosphere (same as needed for long-term orbiting habitats), and the ability to synthesize the needed inputs from Venusian atmosphere. (In contrast to space habitats, where there's no resources with zero transport costs, but low-energy transfers permit resources from a wide range of places with nearly-uniform transport costs, floating colonies give you access to the upper atmosphere for free, decreasing altitude with increasing cost, the surface with insane difficulty and cost, and orbital (or higher) space at costs similar to those for accessing LEO from Earth's surface.)

  3. I knew it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...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.

  4. Non SI units by mikewilsonuk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

    1. Re:Non SI units by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      American baristas' cans average around 34DD.

    2. Re:Non SI units by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I just looked this up - to me "coffee can" meant a 180ml can of liquid coffee (around half the size of a can of coke) that's ready to drink, but apparently this isn't popular outside East Asia. According to Wikipedia, a standard coffee can, also known as a #10 can, has a volume of 13 cups and holds 3 lb of coffee. A cup is a US unit, distinct from the imperial unit of the same name, measuring 16 US tablespoons (again different from imperial tablespoons) or around 237 ml. So a coffee can is not quite 3.1 litres - slightly more than Thanshin's reply of 169.56 cubic inches (which is around 2.8 litres) but slightly less than ksemlerK's reply which comes out as 3.45 litres (unless that's the exterior dimensions?). It also seems kind of weird that the can is so big as it's also called a 3 lb coffee can, which is less than 1.5 kg and coffee is denser than water; perhaps when you open the can it's more than half empty?

    3. Re:Non SI units by Sockatume · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's not liquid coffee, it's ground coffee beans. They're about one third of the density of water.

      --
      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
    4. Re:Non SI units by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      How big is an inch ?

      0.1mm for genital measurement, 25.4mm for everything else.

    5. Re:Non SI units by Sockatume · · Score: 3, Informative

      I suspect the actual grains are more dense than water, but the powder packs inefficiently. (Instant coffee? You're a monster.)

      --
      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
  5. Purpose? by sinktank · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  6. Weed and Dandilions by flyingfsck · · Score: 3, Funny

    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!