Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Good Morning, My son and I are inquiring about projects related to astrobiology / growing plants on Mars, Moon or exoplanets. We've been working thru the background information together but unsure about what we could experiment or test for a project? We thought about building a mini lunar growth chamber of some sort. Any direction or ideas or mentoring would greatly be appreciated. Thank you.

Hi Mary,

That's a fantastic idea and I hope you can make it work. Your idea of a growth chamber is good because obviously the lunar colonists or Neo-Martians are not going to be farming on the surface.

I guess what I would think about most is what would be the most efficient crop of all the plant possibilities to try to grow. Raising the usual garden of corn, tomatoes, beans, peas, squash, melons, cabbage, broccoli, etc., sounds appealing if you are a colonist stuck on a planet 40 million miles from Earth and would like a more earth-like diet than green algae. However, green algae might be the most efficient crop for the conditions.

I would do some more reading on this in order to decide on the 'crop' before you think about building an air-tight Martian dome in the back yard. Actually, this has been tried. It is called Biosphere 2 and was built in Arizona in the 1990s, i believe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2

The sealed Biosphere had some problems, but these may have been worked out since the first trials. Do some reading on this and get back to us with a plan and we'll try to help get you on target for launch on the next SpaceX rocket!

Sybee