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posted by martyb on Sunday July 26 2020, @11:49PM   Printer-friendly
from the I'd-rather-eat-potatoes dept.

Radishes Can Likely Grow in Lunar Regolith - Universe Today:

“We’re trying to show astronauts can use horticulture to grow their own food on the Moon,” said NASA scientist Max Coleman. “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.”

They were about to start doing hands-on tests of soil sensors that might eventually be used on the Moon when the stay-at-home orders were issued. While the team wasn’t able to bring home any lunar simulant or the soil sensors, Coleman decided to innovate. He placed an order online for some desert sand, which doesn’t have any organic matter, so is a good stand-in for the lunar regolith simulant.

[...] He decided to use radish seeds, and ordered them online for home delivery, too.

[...] Also, radishes don’t require a lot of water to germinate, so they provide a good test of what could grow quickly in one lunar day, (28 days, with 14 straight days of sunlight.)

[...] The results were quite surprising: Radishes in the section with the least water germinated first and best, which was interesting because, Coleman said, “we want to see how little water we can get away with.”

The team’s research is helping them develop a small scientific payload on a commercial spacecraft going to the Moon, which, if selected, would be delivered to the lunar surface through the NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. The team planned to develop the experiment as a suitable payload for a CLPS spacecraft in terms of size, mass, power requirement, and communication needs.


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  • (Score: 1) by anubi on Monday July 27 2020, @12:40AM (4 children)

    by anubi (2828) on Monday July 27 2020, @12:40AM (#1026875) Journal

    Hydroponics.

    I've made my point. This is just filler text.

    --
    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
  • (Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2020, @12:47AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2020, @12:47AM (#1026878)

    There's no water on the moon, dipshit. The "hydro" in hydroponics means water.

  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday July 27 2020, @01:33AM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday July 27 2020, @01:33AM (#1026902) Journal

    Hydroponics applied to radishes in desert sand soil.
    The specific result: "radishes in the section with the least water germinated first and best".

    (As a DIY-er, you should be able to appreciate the effort going into the discovery of "what works best" from the maybe many possible solutions)

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 27 2020, @01:56AM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday July 27 2020, @01:56AM (#1026915) Journal

    Thank you - I was scrolling down to find the best place to insert the word "hydroponics" into the conversation.