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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: 4, Informative) by Muad'Dave on Monday July 27 2020, @02:10PM (1 child)

    by Muad'Dave (1413) on Monday July 27 2020, @02:10PM (#1027094)

    Radishes are not particularly nutritious [capcofarms.com], and apparently they have a ton of sodium.

    It would be interesting to see the nutrition profile of his radishes grown in essentially organic matter-free soil. I bet they're deficient in everything useful.

    To get 2000 calories you'd have to eat 48 cups (11.3 liters, 3 gallons) of radishes per day. That'll also get you 24g of potassium and a whopping 56.8 grams of sodium - that's 24x the recommended limit.

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  • (Score: 2) by Taibhsear on Saturday August 01 2020, @01:55PM

    by Taibhsear (1464) on Saturday August 01 2020, @01:55PM (#1029803)

    Wonder if that could lead to a way to possibly desalinate soil or water...