Could recycled sewage grow crops on the Moon and Mars? This is what a recent study published in ACS Earth and Space Chemistry hopes to address as a team of scientists investigated how recycling plant and human waste could be used to fertilize future food crops on the Moon and Mars. This study has the potential to help scientists, engineers, mission planners, astronauts, and the public better understand cost-effective methods for producing food on long-term missions to the Moon and Mars.
For the study, the researchers explored a new method called the bioregenerative life support systems (BLiSS), which is being developed and managed by scientists at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. BLiSS is designed to convert biological waste like plants and sewage into a nutrient-rich product. The team used simulants to mimic Martians and lunar regolith, since the former has never been returned to Earth and the latter is in small amounts worldwide. Using this simulant, the team tested if BLiSS could convert artificial waste into nutrient-rich solutions that could be used for farming and growing crops.
In the end, the researchers found that the simulants combined with water and BLiSS solutions successfully produced materials that could be used for soil. However, the researchers cautioned that Martian and lunar regolith are vastly different from simulant and could produce different results.
“In lunar and Martian outposts, organic wastes will be key to generating healthy, productive soils,” said Harrison Coker, who is a PhD Candidate at Texas A&M University and lead author of the study. “By weathering simulant soils from the moon and Mars with organic waste streams, it was revealed that many essential plant nutrients can be harvested from surface minerals.”
What new insight into recycling food and human waste for food production on the Moon and Mars will researchers make in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!
Sources: ACS Earth and Space Chemistry, EurekAlert!
Featured Image: Zinnia plant in bloom aboard the International Space Station. (Credit: NASA)
