Moon Ideas, Tips & Guides

Simonetta Di Pippo, Bocconi University

Exciting news from NASA – the space agency has selected the first science experiments designed for astronauts to deploy on the surface of the Moon during Artemis III (currently planned for 2026) – and one of them will grow plants!

Gardeners of the Galaxy friend Wieger Wamelink and his research team at Wageningen University & Research and the B.A.S.E. project investigate how we can create a circular and sustainable agricultural ecosystem for food production… on the Moon or Mars.

Laurent Palka, Muséum national d’histoire naturelle (MNHN)

Header image: Nicotiana benthamiana seedlings growing in simulated lunar soil in a laboratory at the China Agricultural University in Beijing. Image credit: Yitong Xia via REUTERS. 

Get ready for launch, it’s time for the latest edition of Gardeners off World!

BBC News has an interesting article this morning about scientists that have managed to grow marigolds in crushed moon rock. Apparently with the right combination of bacteria they can extract the nutrients they need from the rock. Which, in my mind, proves that organic gardening is the way to go – it’s the only method that preserves the soil ecosystem that plants obviously rely on to thrive.

Fifty years ago today, at 13:32 UTC, Apollo 11 launched on its mission to drop off the first humans to set foot on the Moon. It’s something that hasn’t been achieved again since the Apollo program ended, although interest in going back to the Moon has been rekindled somewhat of late. While we remember it as one of the crowning moments of the 20th century, it’s worth noting that the Apollo program wasn’t without its critics. In an interview in 1961, Norbert Wiener, a professor and legendary mathematician at MIT, dismissed the Apollo program as a “moondoggle”!

A little while ago, I told you about a preliminary experiment that Dr Wieger Wamelink and his team at the University of Wageningen conducted. It demonstrated that it is possible to grow plants in simulated Mars and Moon soils. 

When Neil Armstrong made his giant leap for humankind in 45 years ago, he got covered in Moon dust. Throughout the Apollo missions, dust was an issue. Fine but rough, it caused problems with the space suits, and created mini dust storms in the cabin once the landers launched back into space.

I imagine the Apollo 11 astronauts had plenty to do while they were hurtling towards the Moon, but from a bystander’s perspective it was probably pretty dull stuff. Still, it’s Day 3 of the mission, so let’s have a look at what they’ve got stashed away in their space age picnic basket.

Growing lettuce on the Moon is a step closer, as a French start-up has successfully grown lettuce in simulated lunar soil.

The role downunder played in helping track the Apollo 8 mission to the Moon.

On 20th July 1969, Armstrong and Aldrin had to attempt something no one had done before – landing on the lunar surface. They were in orbit some 50,000 feet above the Moon, traveling at several thousand miles per hour, and had to pilot the lunar module Eagle down to the Moon. The entire process, which was little more than a controlled fall, would take just 12 minutes.

After safely landing on the Sea of Tranquility on the evening of 20th July 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had bacon for breakfast before heading out onto the Moon in the early hours of 21st July. (Note that, unlike the Command Module, the Lunar Module (Eagle) only had cold water supplies.) It was Neil Armstrong, of course, who nipped out of first, saying his immortal line as he stepped onto the surface.

Can we grow food on the Moon or Mars? That was the question that started Dr Wieger Wamelink, ecologist and exobiologist at the University of Wageningen in the Netherlands, on a research quest in 2013.

Header image: <a href=«https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/tardigrade-water-bear-3d-rendered-illustration-535109380?src=» http:>3DStock/Shutterstock

Hello, and welcome to Gardeners off World! On 15 February, the NG-13 cargo ship blasted off from NASA Wallops on its way to the International Space Station (ISS). It arrived on 18 February, where NASA astronaut Drew Morgan caught it with the Canadarm2 robotic arm.

Header image: Laser Zentrum Hannover is also looking at lunar 3D printing. LZH

What did you get for Christmas? Hopefully something good, something seedy and something spacey! 

Hello, and welcome to Gardeners Off World, a weekly round-up of news and entertainment for people who rather fancy getting their hands dirty on another planet!

Join Emma the Space Gardener as she explores gardening on Earth… and beyond! In this episode, Emma talks to analog astronaut Elliot Roth, who recently spent two weeks in a simulated Moon mission. Find out why Elliot thinks we should pack algae when we leave Earth, and why we’d be better settling on Venus than Mars.

Join Emma the Space Gardener as she explores cultivating the cosmos, planting planets and sowing seeds in space. The second episode of Gardeners of the Galaxy includes a look at the current state of plant experiments on the International Space Station, a rundown of the missions on their way to Mars and a sneak peek at the future of space chillies. And there’s a seed giveaway too!

Hello, and welcome to Gardeners Off World! I am writing this from lockdown, and you’re probably reading it from lockdown, too. The good news for UK gardeners is that it’s still OK for most people to do some gardening – and that includes people who grow their food on an allotment.

Fifty years ago, Apollo 11 was hurtling along on its mission to deposit two white guys on the Moon. By the time the Apollo program was wound down, 12 people had walked on the Moon, and 24 had been in orbit around the Moon. (Only 6 got to drive a lunar rover.) They were all white guys. Since then, no one has been further than a Low Earth Orbit.

On 24th July 1969, at 16:50 UTC, Apollo 11 splashed down in the north Pacific, about 900 miles south west of Hawaii.

Aldrin and Armstrong blasted off from the Moon in the Eagle lander at 17:54 UTC on 21st June, after spending 21 hours and 36 minutes on the lunar surface. They were carrying 22 kilograms of samples, including 50 rocks, fine-grained lunar “soil” and two core tubes that included material from up to 13 centimetres below the Moon’s surface.

A year ago, the first seeds sprouted on the Moon. China’s Chang’e-4 mission was the first to land on the far side of the Moon, which faces away from Earth. The lander carried a sealed container filled with soil, cotton, rapeseed, Arabidopsis (rock cress) and potato seeds, yeast and fruit fly eggs. The aim of the experiment was to form an artificial, self-sustaining environment – a mini biosphere. The six components were chosen to act “producers, consumers and decomposers”, with the plants producing oxygen and food to sustain the fruit flies. The yeast was to process waste from the flies the dead plants to create more insect food. 

Another week in Lockdown, and another edition of Gardeners off World. We’re all now supposed to feel like astronauts, cooped up inside a small space with the same companions for weeks at a time. The barrage of isolation advice articles from astronauts, analog astronauts and Antarctic scientists continues. If you’re not bored of them yet, Space Nation has thoughts from Jane Poynter, who spent two years locked inside Biosphere 2 and Smithsonian magazine has spoken to people from all three groups of career isolators. I prefer Marina Koren’s article in The Atlantic, which explains why advice from astronauts may not be enough to help us survive a pandemic.

Welcome to Gardeners off World, my weekly round-up of the exciting world of interplanetary gardening!

Welcome to Gardeners Off World! The big news for Seed Guardians of the Galaxy this week is that the apple pips Tim Peake took to space during his Principia mission to the International Space Station (ISS) have been nurtured into saplings that have just been assigned their forever homes.

It has been a momentous week for space news, with the USA announcing its new Space Force insignia. It’s very much like the old Air Force Space Command insignia, and also very much like the Star Trek logo, which had the internet in stitches. And this just days after they announced their new uniform, and it became apparent that they would be going about their business in a totally appropriate woodland camouflage pattern.

Title image: Csilla Ari D`Agostino and her teammate carry out experiments outside their undersea habitat. [Image credit: NASA]

Join Emma the Space Gardener as she explores gardening on Earth… and beyond! Emma’s guest on the show this week is Dr Javier Medina, a Space Plant Biologist with the Spanish National Research Council. He talks about why it’s essential we grow plants in space, what we’ve learned from his experiments, and when there might be a greenhouse on the Moon!

Header image: Artist’s impression of a lunar base. NASA

Hurrah! Fifty years ago today, the Apollo 11 mission arrived in orbit around the Moon.