Dear Regolith Community,
Some of our results using lixiviates to eventually use Regolith has outcome positive results. We were able to grow a chilli plant using a 50% lixiviate Regolith substance and 50% Agar. We are still writing the paper and polishing results - repeating experiments. This, however, has opened our eyes that the plant is eventually like a sensing system and conversations in our lab have evolved into using C.Elegans worms and understanding the effect with their interaction with Regolith. We know efforts have been published:
Turning earthworms into moonworms: Earthworms colonization of lunar regolith as a bioengineering approach supporting future crop growth in space: Heliyon
My educated believe is that the worms will prepare a future soil in space for plants to grow easier and therefore lowering the social and technological costs of efforts such as a lixiviate and just let the worms be. Cheaper as well? Constant iteration of worm technology could eventually create a space worm that is more resilient in the interaction with toxic metals?
Worms could really lower the entry cost for space research in terms of regolith interaction and experimentation (at our lab we have all the materials for micropropagation and the same tools can be used for worms) - we would like to listen the community feedback.
Attached a photo of our chilli plant.
