Scientists Have A Plan For Growing Food On The Moon. Here’s What It Looks Like – SlashGear

The moon doesn’t have soil like Earth. The dusty material which covers its surface is called regolith. This regolith has some different properties from soil — for example, it has no bacteria or other living matter, and it has less nitrogen in it. Both of these are problems for growing plants as they need nitrogen to grow and life in the soil like worms help to aerate it. Regolith also reacts differently to water than soil, as it tends to compact down instead of absorbing it.

That’s why many suggestions for growing crops on the moon have suggested using a hydroponic system, in which plants are grown in a nutrient-filled water instead of soil, so they don’t actually come into contact with the regolith.

But it would be more efficient to find a way to use the moon’s regolith, rather than carrying all of the materials required for hydroponics. The Solsys Mining system uses a mechanical sorting system and a chemical processing section, so the regolith passes through a series of processes which extract the needed nutrients from it. The extracted nutrients are then turned into a fertilizer which can be used in a hydroponic system.

This way, regolith can be processed and the useful nutrients extracted from it, so the plants can grow in the hydroponic system and be fed by the fertilizer made from the readily available regolith.