Scientists at the University of Florida successfully cultivated a plant in lunar soil for the first time. Future long-duration space missions will need to have access to their own food sources if the achievement is to have significant implications.
The scientists persuaded NASA to lend them samples of lunar regolith collected from different locations on the moon during three Apollo missions that took place five decades ago.
They waited to see if anything happened after placing the seeds in the lunar regolith.
The green shoots started to appear after just two days. After six days, it was clear that the plants were not as healthy as they would be if grown in Earth soil or in a lunar simulant. The plants in the regolith were slow to grow and some had no leaves at all.
After harvesting the plants, the team ground them up and studied theRNA, a nucleic acid present in all living cells that has structural similarities to DNA.
The results showed that the plants had indeed experienced stress, and that they had responded in a similar way to how Arabidopsis has been observed to grow in other harsh environments.
The quality of the lunar soil varies, as one sample in particular produced poorer growth results than the other two.
In order to find out if the plants have conditioned the lunar material so that the next set is better, the team will use the same regolith to sow more seeds.
NASA is moving ahead with the Artemis program that will put humans on the lunar surface for the first time since the Apollo missions 50 or so years ago, with long-duration missions to Mars also a possibility.
This research is critical to NASA's long-term human exploration goals as we will need to use resources found on the moon and Mars to develop food sources for future astronauts living and operating in deep space.
The International Space Station has been experimenting with ways to grow plants on a satellite, with leafy greens successfully cultivated during years of ongoing space-based research.
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