A Scientist Is Growing Asparagus In Meteorites To Prepare Us For Space Farming

Jason Koebler writes: For those of us without a green thumb, growing even the most hardy plants in perfect conditions can seem impossible. How about trying to grow plants on a meteorite? Well, at least one scientist is doing it, with moderate levels of success. "People have been talking about terraforming, but what I'm trying to do is give some concrete evidence that it's possible to do this, that it's possible to grow in extraterrestrial materials," Michael Mautner, one of the world's only "astroecologists" said. "What I've found is that a range of microorganisms—bacteria, fungi, and even asparagus and potato plants—can survive with the nutrients that are in extraterrestrial materials."

Comments

Small Question

[LifesABeach]

How big of an meteorite would one need for a valid proof of concept? Also, in order to create atmosphere, a large shake and bake bag of CO2 for said meteorite? Can the roots grab hold onto said meteorite? Maybe a bit celophane tape to hold the seeds on the meteorite till the roots take hold?

I know how stupid this is going to sound; but couldn't one test this out by taking a large meteorite fragment up to the ISS and test there? I know what I just said.

Re:Small Question

[tragedy]

Also most plants don't grow in weightlessness, they can't figure out which way is "up."

Pretty much all of the experiments done on the ISS show the opposite. The plants tested so far don't care about "up". Or, rather, to them "up" is towards the light source and "down" is towards moisture.

artificial light is hopelessly energy inefficient, a solar collector like a bunch of mirrors could directly use the already present high efficiency light from the Sun, instead of the 15% solar to electric, and 0.01%(r something like that) electric to light, and then 0.1% light to carbohydrate through photosynthesis. The overal process efficiency then is 0.15x0.01x0.1=.00015, or 0.015%, not very high. This is a big issue.

What are you smoking there exactly? .01% efficiency for electric lighting? You did put in in your calculation as 1%, but even that's ridiculously low. Even the earliest electric arc lights weren't that inefficient. For modern electric lighting, you're looking at more like at least 30% efficiency, if not more. I have no idea why you included the "light to carbohydrate" efficiency in your calculations. I'm assuming it was to compare against "artificial chemical mini-reactors", but you didn't really give any numbers or description of those processes, so it's not exactly a reasonable comparison, especially since you can get a lot more from plants than just simple sugars. Efficiency of generated light is also a bit harder to figure out because grow lights tend to be tuned for maximally efficient photosynthesis and don't "waste" as much energy as natural sunlight. Your .01% (although you put it in your final calculation as 1%) efficiency for photosynthesis is typically more like 3 to 6% for plants with real sunlight and would probably be at least upwards of 5% for "tuned" artificial light. It's theoretically possible with efficient enough solar cells and artificial lights to take sunlight in through solar cells and produce artificial light from the electricity which actually is more effective at growing plants than the original sunlight. It would require higher efficiencies than are likely to ever become available, however. Still solar powered grow lights don't actually fare as terribly against direct sunlight as you make it out. Also when comparing with Earth, don't forget that space stations beyond LEO (or even in LEO with certain orbits) will tend to have greater insolation than Earth.

In any case, the actual efficiency is going to end up being something more like .15x.3= .045 or 4.5% conservatively, but probably higher. At the same stage of the game, the power available to a chemical mini-reactor is going to be .15, or 15%, since it's getting its power from the same solar cells as the greenhouse. So, then it's a question of how efficient the artificial reactor is versus the plant at converting its input power source to final product. This is of course ignoring the fact that an assortment of plants (and fungi, algae, etc.) is an incredibly complex chemical factory that can produce everything a human needs to survive, whereas a chemical reactor that produces simple carbohydrates... produces simple carbohydrates.

Re:cool hobby, bro

[Immerman]

Just like that idiot who discovered penicillin. What a waste of time, he should have been doing something important like playing croquet with the nobility. Nobody remembers them either, but at least he could have caught a few dozen varieties of syphilis while he was at it.

Re:Dry rocks 'r us

[geekoid]

"...less plants and bacteria..."
really? I think if thatw as an issue the headline would ahve said:

"OMFG! Scientists discovers bacteria and plants in meteor! WORLD CHANGED FOREVER!"

Neil DeGrasse Tyson was quoted as saying "This is the greatest discovery in all of human history, and stop blaming me for Pluto."

Re:Dry rocks 'r us

[TWX]

Yes, but one can test for heavy metals and other toxic substances. He's just establishing a baseline. If it works at all on this very small scale then it's evidence that greater (ie, more expensive) trials may be worthwhile.

The ideas of robotic missions that land on asteroids could include an experiment that attempts to set up some grow chambers pressed against the asteroid, to see if anything can be made to grow directly on one. But, they'd only accept the proposal to try it once it's been demonstrated in a lesser capacity.

Re:Wow, what a bitch...

[Farmer Tim]

“Meteorite” means a rock that has already fallen from the sky, and we have plenty of those. A rock still floating around in space is called an “asteroid”.

And just in case you’re unsure what those other words mean, when you go outside “sky” is what's above your head, “rock” is what your head is made of, and “space” is like what's inside your head except it isn’t as close to a perfect vacuum.