Space and Physics
PUBLISHED
Humans successfully made it to the Moon way back in 1969, but if we’re to drop by for longer visits our astronauts need a more efficient way of sourcing food long-term. Research has improved by leaps and bounds in this department, from cleverly formulated, vacuum-packed “space foods” to grow your own projects taking place on the International Space Station (ISS). A new avenue of investigation is now taking place back here on terra firma, rather unexpectedly in the kitchen of one of NASA’s scientists.
The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.Stuck at home under lockdown conditions, NASA scientist Max Coleman has begun researching the efficacy of radishes as a key species for lunar farming. The experiment is part of a year-long project investigating solutions for lunar farming, and his team had been scheduled to begin testing at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory before Covid-19 came along and ruined everything.
Confined to their homes and frustrated, the team were discussing the different mediums they could attempt to grow radishes in as a way of mimicking conditions on the Moon when Coleman decided enough was enough. If he couldn’t go to the lab, then the lab would come to him. "Let's not theorize about this,” Coleman reportedly exclaimed on the call. “Why don't we just do it!"
Radishes are the poster child for space germination owing to their quick growing time.
NASA scientists are famed for their out-of-the-box thinking, which is good as no matter how enthusiastic you may be about radish germination, one giddy astronaut’s suburban kitchen does not a NASA laboratory make. Coleman was going to have to improvise. He began work using damp paper towels until some “Moon dust” desert sand arrived in the post. Chopsticks were used to make holes for the seeds and each sample was giving varying amounts of water to establish the smallest amount of this precious commodity needed to get the radishes going. The experiment, which used kitchen counter "electrodes" to measure moisture, is an example of exactly the kind of DIY thinking that earns you a gold star in space.
"The more you can use what's already there, the more efficient you can be because you don't have to carry that much with you," Coleman said. "We're trying to show astronauts can use horticulture to grow their own food on the Moon. We want to do one tiny step in that direction, to show that lunar soil contains stuff which can be extracted from it as nutrients for plants. This includes getting the right chemical elements to allow plants to make chlorophyll and grow cell walls."
The homegrown study into extraterrestrially grown radishes is far from perfect, but Coleman and his team will be able to take early lessons gleaned from his preliminary research back to the lab with them. Each of us has been surviving the boredom in our own way, but it would be pretty cool to say you sussed out lunar farming in between Netflix marathons.
Do you know what world-famous Mathematician Isaac Newton got up to when a deadly pandemic hit?
