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Hummus Made From Moon-Grown Chickpeas Might Be on the Menu for Future Lunar Residents
Key takeaways
- Right: A chickpea root covered in the simulated moon soil, which is sharp and glass-like.
- So, Santos and her colleagues attempted—and succeeded—to grow and harvest chickpeas in an enriched lunar-dirt-like soil, which they describe in a study published in March in the journal Scientific Reports.
- Not all dirt is made equal, and moon dirt, called regolith, isn’t ideal for hosting plants.
Right: A chickpea root covered in the simulated moon soil, which is sharp and glass-like. Jessica Atkin NASA is shooting for the moon, aiming to put humans on the lunar surface in 2028 after a 50-plus-year hiatus. This time, the agency wants to establish an enduring presence on our celestial companion.
“We will need to learn how to grow food on the moon, since it will not be sustainable to ship food in spaceships,” Sara Oliveira Santos, a fluid dynamicist at the University of Texas at Austin, tells Reuters’ Will Dunham. “It is still quite expensive to ship things to space, so weight is a factor, and … the survival of astronauts on the moon can’t be dependent on the timely shipment of supplies.”
So, Santos and her colleagues attempted—and succeeded—to grow and harvest chickpeas in an enriched lunar-dirt-like soil, which they describe in a study published in March in the journal Scientific Reports.