Plant Considerations for Lunar Base Agriculture

Abstract

A major emphasis is being placed on the growth of higher plants for life support in controlled ecological life support systems (CELSS) for lunar and other space bases. The research needs have been divided into four general categories to emphasize the unique and different area of research facing scientists working on CELSS. The categories are plant productivity, closed environments, automation and robotics, and space environment. Plant productivity is being investigated by several different scientists both in the USA and USSR. The research for establishing productivity needs in CELSS, based on gm-2 d-1 are significantly different than for studying productivity in traditional agricultural systems. There is a need for extensive screening of lines and cultivars of species from all over the world. There is a need for determining the productivity of plants with different spacing to minimize the number of transplants or seeds that would have to be used on a given area.