[HN Gopher] Plants grown in Apollo lunar regolith
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Plants grown in Apollo lunar regolith
Author : perihelions
Score : 79 points
Date : 2022-05-12 18:55 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
| yborg wrote:
| What surprised me the most about this story is that apparently
| nobody tried this obvious experiment in the last 50 years. It
| seems basic to supporting a settlement on the Moon.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| No one has made credible plans towards supporting a settlement
| on the Moon in the last 50 years, either.
| [deleted]
| Isamu wrote:
| Real lunar regolith is not available for experiments like this.
| However you can buy simulated lunar regolith, it's very
| expensive but not nearly so as the real thing.
| gibolt wrote:
| Real lunar regolith is available in mass quantities, but the
| ports are just backed up. Not many ships flying round trip to
| the moon recently
| rland wrote:
| Well, that's not surprising, what with all these Covid
| supply chain issues and all. I'm sure it'll be resolved
| soon.
| [deleted]
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| My understanding is that we have only a small sample and
| growing things in it would ruin it for a lot of experiments.
| noselasd wrote:
| We do have 382 kilograms of lunar samples returned form the
| apollo missions - not sure how much of that is regolith
| though
| ghostly_s wrote:
| These have got to be the most expensive flowers in history.
| avmich wrote:
| I'm surprised given that some people had experience growing
| plants in sand, in water, in air, in some synthetic soils. Is
| the lunar soil somehow worse than that? Why?
| lurquer wrote:
| You can grow plants in a can of steel bb's, ground up gummy
| bears, sand, shredded beer cans, etc....
|
| The matrix isn't important to most plants. Just the nutrients
| it gets.
|
| Any hydroponic pot grower knows this.
| Nikbul wrote:
| It is worse for Earth plants due to long term exposure to
| solar radiation and direct meteorite impacts. Article states
| that Iron in the moon soil is Fe2, while on Earth it present
| as Fe3. Another major difference-is silicates and glass
| composition on the moon. Those are formed by micro meteorite
| impacts and very different from earth volcano samples.
|
| So plants in moon soil had to adapt a lot more then expected.
| Also difference between actual moon soil and Earth's moon
| soil replacement for labs is clearly visible.
| gtowey wrote:
| That was my question as well. But I think the article says
| the scientists didn't know if something in the lunar soil
| would actively inhibit plant growth.
|
| It looks like the answer is no, and you can use it as an
| effective substrate for what is essentially a hydroponic type
| setup where the nutrients are all added.
| uoaei wrote:
| Experiments have been ramping up over the past couple decades
| with both Luna- and Mars-analogous simulated regolith. The
| novelty is doing it on real regolith brought back from Luna.
| guenthert wrote:
| So you mean if the plants wouldn't suffocate from lack of CO2,
| wouldn't instantly freeze or dehydrate and not have their DNA
| destroyed by the radiation, then settlers could actually
| harvest them and prosper? Yeah, wonder why no-one thought about
| that.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Clearly there's going to be plastic shielding in the balloon
| style green houses they will build with the right air
| mixture. /s
| rich_sasha wrote:
| Amazing.
|
| I wonder if other plant species are better suited to growing in
| Lunar "soil". Just like on Earth plants prefer one type of soil
| to another.
| Maciek416 wrote:
| At least _prior_ to knowing anything else about regolith, aside
| from it sometimes having volcanic origins: Speaking as a person
| who grows a wide variety of woody tree species (pines, maples,
| junipers, cottonwoods, azaleas, etc) in inorganic substrates
| like pure perlite, pure lava, pure pumice (+combinations of
| those and other volcanic media), and has seen all of these tree
| species happily send roots into things like IKEA astroturf or
| blocks of Rockwool, it doesn't surprise me that regolith could
| maybe work as a grow media.
| gibolt wrote:
| Is it not the case that they'd be 'looking' for good soil
| beyond those surfaces, even if it wasn't there?
|
| It makes sense evolutionarily to 'just work' when possible,
| especially since the alternative is death
| a1369209993 wrote:
| > pure lava,
|
| Is this jargon for some lava-derived rock like obsidian or
| basalt? Because I'm fairly sure even extremophile bacteria,
| never mind any kind of tree, wouldn't be able to grow in
| actual (ie molten rock) lava.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| Fascinating... dare I ask, is that a hobby? A very unusual
| job?
| Maciek416 wrote:
| Bonsai. Hobby for me, but unusual job for my mentors.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| Interestingly ionic stresses on plants is not a problem unique
| to the moon - There are plenty of places on earth
| where(relative to typ. earth soil) high salinity soils exist :
|
| https://www.agriculture.com/crops/cover-crops/new-life-for-s...
|
| With a little bit of selective breeding and genetic
| manipulation moon diets might include a lot of specialized
| barley and sugar beets!
| chrisweekly wrote:
| I'm picturing the solar system's first batch of actual
| moonshine.
| s0rce wrote:
| Salicornia do really well in salty marshy areas and are
| edible!
| m348e912 wrote:
| cookingrobot wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_evidence_for_Apo...
| jotm wrote:
| How can they orbit the Earth when it's flat? Come on
| dylan604 wrote:
| We call that circling the drain rather than orbiting.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| Remarkable. I guess some of the old timey tinfoil hat theories
| are still around. If the Americans didn't put the LLR on the
| moon who did? I think you'll find it difficult to suggest that
| it's naturally occurring.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Laser_Ranging_experiment
| zardo wrote:
| The moon landings were faked, but they faked them on site.
| walrus01 wrote:
| They hired Stanley Kubrick to fake it, but he insisted on
| authenticity for the cinematic method, so the only solution
| was to film on-site.
| jl6 wrote:
| Apollos 1-10 landed on the moon to properly scope it out so
| they could be sure the faked Apollo 11 would look
| realistic.
| kube-system wrote:
| 1+10=11 -- that can't be a coincidence!
| importantbrian wrote:
| I had a roommate who was really into these conspiracies. I
| brought up the LLR and his response was that he believes NASA
| sent rovers and satellites and other automated missions to
| the moon, but doesn't believe we landed men on the moon. So
| he said the LLR was placed there by one of those missions as
| part of the hoax.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Look at all the comments on those videos and you can see
| those theorie are still quite popular.
|
| I love their behavior as some kind of evidence though.
| Basically the argument boils down to "Come on, really?..."
| dylan604 wrote:
| I mean we still have people that believe the earth is flat,
| so of course Kubrik helped NASA fake the landing on a sound
| stage in Hollywood.
| stuff4ben wrote:
| So just plain regolith was used? I wonder if it was augmented by
| fertilizer how much of a difference it would make (a la The
| Martian)?
| perihelions wrote:
| They did add stuff; C-f for "nutrient solution"
| nomercy400 wrote:
| Any reason they picked this specific plant?
| siver_john wrote:
| It is often a model organism in plant studies, similar to mice
| in drug discovery. Mostly because it has a quick growth time,
| is fairly hardy, and just the fact it has been so well studied
| means that a lot is known about it.
|
| I am not a plant biologist but have talked to some and I've
| often seen it used in their work and this was their given
| reasons.
| rzzzt wrote:
| Wikipedia says its small genome and short "cycle time" makes it
| an excellent test subject for various experiments. A photo
| depicts it growing in sidewalk cracks.
|
| Maybe they'll pick an orchid next time!
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(page generated 2022-05-12 23:00 UTC)