Virginia Commonwealth University Researcher Attempting to Grow Plants in Meteorites

or those of us without a green thumb, growing even the most hardy plants in perfect conditions can seem impossible. How about trying to grow plants on a meteorite? Well, at least one scientist is doing it, with moderate levels of success.

The thinking goes—if we're going to have space colonies, we're going to need some way to eat. Transporting all food from Earth isn't realistic, and neither is bringing tons of bags of topsoil. Photos of asteroids, meteors, and other planets in our solar system look incredibly desolate, but, in fact, some of them contain many of the nutrients necessary to grow plants.

"People have been talking about terraforming, but what I'm trying to do is give some concrete evidence that it's possible to do this, that it's possible to grow in extraterrestrial materials," Michael Mautner, a Virginia Commonwealth University researcher and one of the world's only "astroecologists" told me. "What I've found is that a range of microorganisms—bacteria, fungi, and even asparagus and potato plants—can survive with the nutrients that are in extraterrestrial materials."

Asteroids and meteorites often contain phosphate, nitrates, and even water that plants can feed on. Mautner thinks it's not outside the realm of possibility to directly grow certain plants on other planets, in some sort of protected environment.

He's not simply tossing asparagus seeds onto a meteorite, however—he's grinding up the rock into something more closely resembling soil. His plan is to eventually find several different plants and extraterrestrial soils that make the most sense to farm, and use his experiments to develop a "rating system" for which are likely to fare best—a kind of interplanetary farmer's almanac, if you will.

Of course, Mautner is doing these experiments on Earth, and it's worth taking his results with more than a grain of salt—he's not considering the lack of oxygen on other planets and the different gravity conditions.

"The conditions outside Earth are presumably anaerobic—that's an order of magnitude harder to do," he said. "But, if we can find things that can grow in extraterrestrial materials under Earth conditions, you can start to talk about it. We can maybe start to use those materials in artificial, oxygen-containing environments."

link.