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 Horticulture
Mycocurious
Registered: 04/30/09
Posts: 1,006
Loc: Midwest
Last seen: 12 days, 23 hours
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 Growing Plants on the Moon Thread! 
#11781492 - 01/07/10 02:10 AM (2 years, 4 months ago) |
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So, I've always been fascinated with the moon, and felt like lunar colonization is an excellent goal for humanity to strive toward. It fascinates me so, because it is beautiful, is best at night (like myself), and I associate it with asian women. I've never really understood why everyone is not as fascinated by the moon as I am, and as eager to spend billions and trillions of dollars to attempt to colonize it. Perhaps it is because I don't have billions and trillions of dollars, but I feel like that money would be far better spent than building anything in Dubai, which I find to be the most positively disgusting place on the planet.
At any rate, an important component of colonizing the moon (and most directly relevant to myself) would be growing plants (and fungus) on it, for the purpose of creating food, oxygen, and creating a more suitable habitat for humans. Obviously this would have to be under glass for the purpose of air-retention and blocking radiation, but using lunar soil (regolith) as substrate is definitely a viable if not necessary option.
There's been some work to produce artificial lunar soils for the purpose of experimentation, and a lot of interest around acquiring these soils, but it seems to be exceedingly difficult, and in incredibly short supply. I am hoping I could possibly use my university status to acquire some lunar regolith simulant for experimentation, but have yet to look into it. My current university is not particularly research oriented, and I'm only an undergrad, but it might be worth a shot.
Anyway, this thread is for posting articles, links, ideas, experiments, or just whatever as long as it relates to growing plants on the moon. To jump start you, here's some interesting reads on lunar soil:
Marigolds "thriving" in unfertilized lunar simulant:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7351437.stm
Some pictures of some of the more bizarre characteristics of Lunar Soil:
http://meteorites.wustl.edu/lunar/regolith_breccia.htm
Simplified overview of Lunar Soil:
http://www.moonminer.com/Lunar_regolith.html
NASA on previous Lunar Regolith Simulants, and the need for better ones:
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20080030795_2008030019.pdf
In depth discussion of Lunar Soil characteristics:
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/surface/carrier_lunar_soils.pdf
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mr. morning glory
me
Registered: 11/10/09
Posts: 25
Last seen: 2 years, 2 days
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 Re: Growing Plants on the Moon Thread! [Re: Horticulture]
#11781519 - 01/07/10 02:29 AM (2 years, 4 months ago) |
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I don't know; personally i think improving our own planet would be a better alternative. we'd probably fuck up the moon like we do earth. and since the moon is so connected with the tides on our planet we would probably end up fucking our earth up even more. some say the moon even effects our woman as well. do u want to fuck up our planets female even more?!?
but if i had to go with any plant to plant on the moon it would probably of the artemisa genus like wormwood or mugwort. in many ancient cultures, a lot of peoples associate plants like mugwort with the moon.
hey u seem to wanna colonize the moon alot lol r u undercover nasa lol?
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 Fleadh
Eh No....
Registered: 05/11/09
Posts: 2,354
Loc: Ireland 
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I have a fear about colonising the moon as I dont think we, as a species, are capable of being carefull enough about it.
We'll get all excited about it and start building moonbases and stuff without taking into consideration that for every tonne of mass you bring to the moon from earth you have to bring the exact same amount back to the earth.
Decreasing earths mass slightly may not make a huge difference but if you build a few cities on the moon and fill them full of people and water and youve got a problem.
But then again I aint no physics type person and them numbers and bells and whictles makes no real sense to be but I darn dont want no moon falling out of the sky.
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Friendships have come and gone but I always regret the girls I didn't bang
I just dont really care what you think
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Kanker
Hides in tall grass
Registered: 07/16/07
Posts: 738
Loc: On a Long dead-heart.
Last seen: 1 year, 7 days
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Re: Growing Plants on the Moon Thread! [Re: Fleadh]
#11781737 - 01/07/10 04:50 AM (2 years, 4 months ago) |
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Pretty sure most plants would have a real hard time living / growing in low gravity environments, as would any terrestrial life form.
The moon gains mass all the time, space junk, rocks, hell, we even crashed a spacecraft on it just for kicks not too recently ago (probably not just for kicks, but still, crashing a multimillion+ project into the moon sounds pretty useless to me).
I don't think that we need to worry about the moon spinning out of orbit any time soon due to it gaining mass.
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I'm ahead, I'm advanced
I am the first mammal to make plans, yeah
I crawled the earth, but now I'm higher
2010, watch it go to fire.
It's evolution baby.
-Pearl Jam
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DeeGee
Insert Title Here
Registered: 06/25/09
Posts: 1,436
Loc: Sunny Southern California 
Last seen: 11 months, 1 day
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 Re: Growing Plants on the Moon Thread! [Re: Kanker]
#11782059 - 01/07/10 07:51 AM (2 years, 4 months ago) |
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Yeah, let's work on earth first because it sucks here still.
Upon seeing the BBC article I am interested in [artificial] lunar soils as supplements/fertilizer to plant life on Earth.
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DG
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jben
Don't panic, it's organic
Registered: 05/24/04
Posts: 930
Last seen: 7 months, 2 days
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Re: Growing Plants on the Moon Thread! [Re: DeeGee]
#11782433 - 01/07/10 09:20 AM (2 years, 4 months ago) |
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It would be cool idea no doubt. Does anyone remember a movie that came out maybe 7-10 years ago? It was a horror/sci fi about them building a greenhouse/base on mars. there was some weird face on mars and weird shit started happening to the astronaughts. I also think people need to work on protecting our own planet before we start trashing other moons/planets.
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Don't panic, it's organic!
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Cactusdan
Patecatl
Registered: 10/11/07
Posts: 6,955
Loc: Georgia/Florida
Last seen: 5 days, 4 hours
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Re: Growing Plants on the Moon Thread! [Re: jben]
#11782451 - 01/07/10 09:23 AM (2 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
jben said:
I also think people need to work on protecting our own planet before we start trashing other moons/planets.
QFT!
This is quite an interesting article though, thanks hort!
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HarveyWalbanger
Demiurge
Registered: 06/24/02
Posts: 2,997
Loc: 8b
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Re: Growing Plants on the Moon Thread! [Re: Horticulture]
#11782937 - 01/07/10 10:52 AM (2 years, 4 months ago) |
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If you were to terraform the moon into a paradise... They would shoot you and put up a military base. 
humanity has alot of groing up to do first.
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Kanker
Hides in tall grass
Registered: 07/16/07
Posts: 738
Loc: On a Long dead-heart.
Last seen: 1 year, 7 days
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'call some place paradise: kiss it goodbye'
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I'm ahead, I'm advanced
I am the first mammal to make plans, yeah
I crawled the earth, but now I'm higher
2010, watch it go to fire.
It's evolution baby.
-Pearl Jam
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durian_2008
Registered: 04/02/08
Posts: 1,912
Last seen: 9 hours, 55 minutes
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Re: Growing Plants on the Moon Thread! [Re: Kanker]
#11785376 - 01/07/10 05:10 PM (2 years, 4 months ago) |
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(Humans are very grown up - when justice, religion, and the market are based on moral free agency and equivalent exchange.)
Do you have any metaphysical interests, Horticulture?
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