As NASA prepares for the Artemis II mission and makes a renewed push to explore the moon, scientists are pondering a practical challenge for future astronauts: what they may eat. New research from the University of Texas at Austin suggests that chickpeas could also be a part of the reply.
In a recent experiment, scientists successfully grew and harvested chickpeas using artificial “moon dirt.” This is the primary time that a crop has been developed in a fabric designed to mimic lunar soil. The research was conducted with colleagues at Texas A&M University and published within the journal
The results represent a very important step toward understanding how crops could be grown on the lunar surface, said Sarah Santos, the project’s principal investigator.
“This research is about understanding the viability of growing crops on the moon,” said Santos, a distinguished postdoctoral fellow on the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics (UTIG) within the Jackson School of Geosciences. “How do we transform this regolith into soil? What kinds of natural mechanisms might cause this transformation?”
Challenges of growing plants in lunar soil
Lunar regolith is the scientific name for the dusty material covering the surface of the Moon. Unlike soil on Earth, it doesn’t contain the microorganisms or organic matter that plants depend upon to grow. Although regolith accommodates minerals and nutrients that plants can use, it also accommodates heavy metals that may harm plant growth.
To test whether crops could grow under these conditions, the researchers used an artificial lunar soil developed by Exolith Labs. The composition is designed to closely resemble the composition of lunar samples brought back in the course of the Apollo missions.
Making higher soil with vermicompost
To improve the growing environment, the team mixed artificial lunar soil with vermicompost. This nutrient-rich material is created by red wiggler earthworms as they digest organic waste. Vermicompost accommodates worthwhile plant nutrients and a various microbiome that supports plant health.
In an area mission setting, insects can compost waste materials comparable to food scraps or cotton clothing and hygiene products that might otherwise be thrown away.
Before planting, the researchers coated gram seeds with arbuscular mycorrhizae fungi. These fungi form a symbiotic relationship with plants. They help plants absorb key nutrients while also reducing the quantity of heavy metals from the soil.
Chickpeas grow in artificial moon dirt.
Santos and his team planted chickpeas in numerous mixtures of moon dirt and vermicompost.
The results show that plants can grow successfully in mixtures containing as much as 75% artificial silver soil. When the quantity of lunar dirt increased above this level, the plants became stressed and shortly died.
Even under difficult conditions, plants treated with the fungus survived longer than plants that weren’t inoculated. This highlights how necessary fungi were in helping the plant grow. The researchers also discovered that the fungi were able to determine themselves in artificial lunar soil, suggesting that they might only must be introduced once right into a real lunar farming system.
Are chickpeas grown within the moon suitable for eating?
Although harvesting gram from artificial moon litter is a very important milestone, several questions remain. Scientists still need to find out whether plants absorb harmful metals from soil and whether chickpeas provide the nutrients astronauts need.
“We want to understand their feasibility through food,” said Jessica Atkin, a doctoral candidate in Texas A&M University’s Department of Soil and Crop Science and first creator of the paper. “How healthy are they? Do they have the nutrients that astronauts need? If they’re not safe to eat, how many generations do they have?”
The project was originally self-funded by Santos and Atkin. It has since received additional support through a NASA FINESTST grant, which can help advance research into growing food for future missions to the Moon.