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There’s not really any reason to grow crops on the moon though. A lunar base could be useful but never a self sufficient settlement of any sort. The moon cannot
by oneoff786 4y ago
There’s not really any reason to grow crops on the moon though. A lunar base could be useful but never a self sufficient settlement of any sort. The moon cannot support a real atmosphere.
- toast0 4y agoMoonberries could be tasty? Some form of agriculture could improve morale on a base; fresh food is nice. Possibly helpful for processing waste (although bag it and ignore it seems pretty viable too).
- oneoff786 4y agoMoon dust is extremely dangerous. The taste would likely be just a function of nutrients. Seems like it would be a big risk. The ISS and subs do just fine without growing food.
- tshaddox 4y agoGrowing crops on the moon wouldn’t necessarily have anything to do with being self-sufficient, right? Wouldn’t it just be a straightforward matter of whether sending the water and nutrients to grow crops would be cheaper than sending food grown on Earth?
- oneoff786 4y agoIt will be orders of magnitude cheaper to send food from earth. Growing crops requires time, water, nutrients, warmth sunlight, labor, and a lot space. I would wager that last one is the biggest issue but the others are non trivial. A starship heavy launch filled with food is ~$10M and is wayyy overkill.
- a_t48 4y agoCouldn’t the CO2 be turned back into O2 + C? Understandably the tech to do so efficiently might not exist right now, but from a materials perspective I don’t see why not, with enough recycling. (Putting aside that Earth would still have to supply spare parts and some smaller amount of materials)
- popcube 4y agothis will prove that at least environment modifying can work
- oneoff786 4y agoIf you mean terraforming the moon, that won’t work. This is only for indoors experiments.