Why in Orbit and Not in Space for Artera?

By Shen Ge

When one talks off-world agriculture, naturally one thinks about terraforming on the moon and Mars where plants are grown in the local soil. However, there are two main reasons why we do not want to do this. These two are:

There is a lack of research on how living organisms grow in places with partial gravity; the moon has 1/6 of Earth gravity whereas Mars has 3/8 of Earth gravity. We don’t even know how humans would grow much less how plants would. Meanwhile, we have a large body of experimental evidence on the International Space Station (ISS) which has shown that growing plants in microgravity is safe and feasible [1].
Radiation and regolith are unsolved problems. Both lunar and Martian soil are toxic to plants with the moon regolith containing sharp glassy particles and Martian regolith containing perchlorates. The lunar regolith transcriptome study is the most striking one — real Apollo soil samples were used, and plants grown in it showed clear stress gene expression, confirming regolith itself (not just gravity) is a hurdle still being worked out. Without special soil treatment, do not expect to see any plant growth [2, 3].

Add on to this the further note that there needs to be shielding from radiation. Meanwhile, a spacecraft using hydroponics, aeroponics or plant pillows provides the natural environment for plants to thrive.

References

[1] Hardware Validation of the Advanced Plant Habitat on ISS: Canopy Photosynthesis in Reduced Gravity https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7314936/

[2] Plants grown in Apollo lunar regolith present stress-associated transcriptomes that inform prospects for lunar exploration https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9098553/

[3] NASA Plant Researchers Explore Question of Deep-Space Food Crops https://www.nasa.gov/science-research/nasa-plant-researchers-explore-question-of-deep-space-food-crops/