Apollo 50: Moon microbes

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. 

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

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

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.