First time, scientists grow plants in moon soil collected by NASA

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — For the first time, scientists have grown plants in soil from the moon collected by NASA's Apollo astronauts.

The researchers had no idea if anything would sprout in the harsh moon dirt and wanted to see if it could be used to grow food for the next generation of lunar explorers. The results stunned them.

Holy cow. Plants grow in lunar stuff. Robert Ferl, a professor at the University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, said.

Ferl and his colleagues planted thale cress in moon soil returned by Apollo 11 s Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, and other moonwalkers. The seeds sprouted, and there was a good news.

The small, flowering weeds grew more slowly after the first week, because the coarseness and other properties of the lunar soil stressed them so much that they grew more slowly than seedlings planted in fake moon dirt from Earth. Most of the moon plants ended up stunted.

The plants seemed to do worse the longer the soil was exposed to punishing cosmic radiation and solar wind on the moon. The Apollo 11 samples - exposed a couple of billion years longer to the elements because of the Sea of Tranquility's older surface - were the least conducive for growth, according to scientists.

Simon Gilroy, a space plant biologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said this is a big step forward to know that you can grow plants. The next step is to go and do it on the surface of the moon. Moon soil is full of tiny glass fragments from micrometeorite impacts that got everywhere in the Apollo lunar landers and wore down the moonwalkers spacesuits.

One solution might be to use younger geologic spots on the moon, like lava flows, for digging up planting soil. The environment could be tweaked, altering the nutrient mixture or changing artificial lighting, or adjusting the artificial lighting.

Six Apollo crews brought back 842 pounds 382 kilograms of moon rocks and soil. Some of the earliest moon dust was sprinkled on plants under quarantine with the Apollo astronauts in Houston after returning from the moon.

The lunar stash remained locked away, forcing researchers to experiment with simulated soil made of volcanic ash on Earth. The long-awaited planting took place last May in a lab, and NASA finally gave 12 grams to the University of Florida researchers early last year.

NASA said the timing for such an experiment was finally right, with the space agency looking to put astronauts back on the moon in a few years.

Scientists said that the ideal situation would be for future astronauts to tap into the endless supply of local dirt for indoor planting versus setting up a hydroponic, or all-water, system.

Anything grew means that we have a really good starting point, and now the question is how do we optimize and improve, according to Sharmila Bhattacharya, NASA's program scientist for space biology.

Florida scientists hope to recycle their lunar soil later this year, planting more thale cress before moving on to other vegetation.