Lunar soil, is it good for plants?

Dominic-Luc Webb wrote:

I would like to find out what a lunar soil would consist of,
including particle sizes. I am sure it will work fine as a supporting
substrate, but some heavier metals, if present, could accumulate
into leaves and fruits rendering them inedible.

My guess would be that power station fly-ash might make a good analogue.

Steve

Hi,

I am not sure what fly-ash is chemically. What kind of
power station would have this?

Dominic


On Mon, 5 Jul 2004, Steve Taylor wrote:

Dominic-Luc Webb wrote:

I would like to find out what a lunar soil would consist of,
including particle sizes. I am sure it will work fine as a supporting
substrate, but some heavier metals, if present, could accumulate
into leaves and fruits rendering them inedible.

My guess would be that power station fly-ash might make a good analogue.

Steve

Dominic-Luc Webb wrote:
Hi,

I am not sure what fly-ash is chemically. What kind of
power station would have this?

Hi Dominic,

Its a by-product of coal power stations.

Many "Thermal" building blocks are made of it - it is mixed with cement
and aluminium powder, water is added, and then the aluminium reacts with
the water and alkali to produce hydrogen which bubbles the cement to
make a very lightweight concrete.

You could conceivably powder such blocks if you broke them up in a
concrete mixer.

You can also buy silica "flour", glass microspheres etc as fillers for
fibre glass work (look at "West system" epoxy for example for fillers)

Steve

Dominic-Luc Webb wrote in message ...
Brilliant work Bill. I feel inspired. I just started
gardening this year, got myself a garden very close
to Martian conditions... near Uppsala, Sweden.

Coincidentally, I am growing Mexican koriander. Please consider
this is also important for Mexican foods, like Salsa Verde. My
land is 10x100 meters and I am putting up a shelter and greenhouse.
My background is molecular medicine, so I have some biology
training. We were just discussing amongst some of the other
gardeners there, some more serious science. You have revitalized
my interests.

I would like to find out what a lunar soil would consist of,
including particle sizes. I am sure it will work fine as a supporting
substrate, but some heavier metals, if present, could accumulate
into leaves and fruits rendering them inedible. The extent of this
could depend on thing like temperature, freeze-thaw cycles, particle
size, moisture content, pH, etc.

I shall be interested to see how your work progresses...

Dominic-Luc Webb

There must be some lunar soil in the science lab of a university near
you that could shed light on some of these Q's. A Google search is
another obvious avenue.

I just measured the interior cubic volume of space inside my
astroculture "shed" described he-
http://uk.geocities.com/aa_spaceagen...oculture2.html

and its approx. 338 cubic feet.
With your molecular medicine background would you happen to have any
idea as to how much plant foliage would be required to fill this
volume of space with oxygen to the tune of "1 atmosphere" (if that's
the right way to put it)? I suppose that would also depend on the
volume of CO2 provided for intake and how good the cycle was working.

Does the amount of oxygen produced by a plant generally depend on the
surface area of its leaves and are some plants better than others in
their oxygen outputs? Is there a 'best plant' for oxygen output and
does it all depend on temperatures, etc?
These are some of the Q's I was hoping to get answers to using simple
"hands on" experiments in the facility described on my web page.
NASA research into wheat and soy bean experiments conducted aboard the
ISS must have some of these answers... I just don't know where they
are.

cheers
Abdul Ahad

and its approx. 338 cubic feet.
With your molecular medicine background would you happen to have any
idea as to how much plant foliage would be required to fill this
volume of space with oxygen to the tune of "1 atmosphere" (if that's
the right way to put it)? I suppose that would also depend on the
volume of CO2 provided for intake and how good the cycle was working.

I am not a plant physiologist, but I presume the plants will also
generate CO2 during mitochondrial metabolism. The number of atmospheres
depends on what the starting pressure was. I once experimented with
the output from yeast fermentation (CO2) as a source of CO2 to
grow green algae.



Does the amount of oxygen produced by a plant generally depend on the
surface area of its leaves and are some plants better than others in
their oxygen outputs?

I think it depends on the number of pores and their regulation,
as by hormones. This is covered in great detail in my plant
physiology textbooks at home. I do not work with this, but do have
some books.



Is there a 'best plant' for oxygen output and
does it all depend on temperatures, etc?

The Russians experimented very heavily with algae (maybe
the best of all) and I believe some photosynthetic bacteria.
I think the bacteria where interesting because there was a
mechanism to also extract hydrogen which could be used as
a fuel.


These are some of the Q's I was hoping to get answers to using simple
"hands on" experiments in the facility described on my web page.
NASA research into wheat and soy bean experiments conducted aboard the
ISS must have some of these answers... I just don't know where they
are.


The NASA research on the Space Shuttle has been less than
impressive, given the massive budgets. There is (was) a group
next door in Norway that was working on chambers for such
experiments, and I once had some contact with them about
this. I think the Norwegian group was very progressive and I
should probably try and get in touch with them to see what
they are up to these days...

Dominic

I am not sure what fly-ash is chemically. What kind of
power station would have this?

Hi Dominic,

Its a by-product of coal power stations.

This seems odd. This is basically derived from organic matter.
Is this really a good substitute for Lunar soil?

Dominic

Dominic-Luc Webb wrote:
I am not sure what fly-ash is chemically. What kind of
power station would have this?

Hi Dominic,

Its a by-product of coal power stations.


This seems odd. This is basically derived from organic matter.
Is this really a good substitute for Lunar soil?

Dominic

Its ASH - entirely inorganic, 0% carbon. Mineral. Unburnable. finely
divided.

Steve

Dominic-Luc Webb wrote:
I am not sure what fly-ash is chemically. What kind of
power station would have this?

Hi Dominic,

Its a by-product of coal power stations.


This seems odd. This is basically derived from organic matter.
Is this really a good substitute for Lunar soil?

Dominic


From http://geoserver.cee.wisc.edu/FAUGA/new_page_1.htm

- If I remember correctly though, isn't the moon surface iron-depleted,
compared to earth ?

So silica flour and aloxite powder might make a decent analogue instead ?

Steve

On 2004-07-05, Dominic-Luc Webb wrote:

I am not sure what fly-ash is chemically. What kind of
power station would have this?

Fly ash is the ash that remains after burning pulverized coal. It is
mainly silica and alumina with oxides and sulfides of iron and other
metals, unburned carbon and water. There are also trace amounts of
heavy metals such as mercury, cadmium or lead that sometime exceed
health limits.

Several responses have returned now and looking around, I
think Fly-ash looks OK, but the JSC-1 soil described by
McKay et al seems to be the best bet. They describe it as
available at cost of shipping to qualified investigators.
I will contact them and see if they regard me as qualified
to receive their "JSC-1 Lunar soil simulant"...

http://ares.jsc.nasa.gov/HumanExplor...CS/EIC050.HTML

I read and appreciate all the responses thus far. I have
some ideas I have wanted to test for years and maybe now
I can do so.

Regarding the toxic rare metals in some simulants, I think I
would prefer the composition of the JSC-1 for now. Some plants
could be accumulators, which could end up being valuable for
removing some of these metals. Some mushrooms are notorious
accumulators of heavy metals, perhaps even some bacteria. This
may well be the first step in lunar agriculture; preparation
of soil to make it compatible with food cultivation.

I would not worry about atmosphere of the soil or water. By
anyone's estimate that I know of, these would be added by human
intervention. In using these lunar simulants, I will provide
air and water. I will even allow for sane light and dark cycles.

Dominic