The plants—a mustard cress, a type of brassica, and a duckweed that grows in ponds—are part of the LEAF project, and will be placed on the moon’

Will Plants Grow on the Moon?

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2024-09-27 19:30:04

The plants—a mustard cress, a type of brassica, and a duckweed that grows in ponds—are part of the LEAF project, and will be placed on the moon’s surface when NASA’s Artemis III mission arrives there in the near future—possibly as soon as 2026. The plants will be transported in a “growth chamber” containing air, heat, and internal lights, but they will be exposed to lunar gravity and most types of lunar radiation.

“What we are really looking at is the effects of lunar radiation on plant growth,” says Marshall Porterfield, a biological engineer at Purdue University and one of the scientists leading the LEAF experiment. “That’s our main consideration.” Finding plants that grow best on the moon is a crucial aspect of what space scientists call “bioregenerative” life support—the idea of sending not just humans but entire human ecosystems into space. Scientists want to figure out how to provide enough air, food, and water for astronauts on space missions that may take months or years, and biological solutions could help make that a more realistic goal. The plants will take root in the growth chamber before the launch, and the project will measure how well they grow under lunar conditions. The moon has no atmosphere and only a very weak magnetic field, so its surface is flooded by radiation from the sun and cosmic rays—about 200 times stronger than on Earth. Meanwhile, gravity on the moon is roughly one sixth as strong as that on Earth. When the astronauts leave after a week or so of exploration, the growth chamber will be split in two. One half of the plants will return to Earth for study; the other half will stay on the moon.

One of the species—the mustard cress Arabidopsis thaliana—was chosen because it is a “model organism” that has been studied by biologists for decades. That detailed understanding will make it easier to decipher its response to the lunar environment. The brassica is an edible oilseed that was genetically bred to be fast-growing, which could be useful on the moon. The duckweed may be uniquely suited to space: It grows in water without roots, helps to filter the water it grows in, and contains many nutrients humans need to survive.