Plant living on the Moon?

Lunar Oasis project logo. Credit: ParagonSDC, Odyssey Moon LLC

If plans unfold as originally intended, one unexpected result of Google’s Lunar X Prize (which, like the original Ansari X Prize, is intended to spur private industry involvement in space development,) may be the transport and growth of the Moon’s first living plant.

Odyssey Moon Ventures LLC and Paragon Space Development Corporation announced a partnership in spring 2009 to create and deliver a lunar greenhouse.

Industry titan Paragon, a forerunner in space life support systems, is leading the charge with Odyssey, which was formed to compete for the Lunar X Prize, to create a “Lunar Oasis.”  This isn’t the first time Paragon has been involved with a project of this sort, as they’d previously designed a potential Mars sealed plant growth chamber for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Lunar Oasis module prototype. Credit: Odyssey Moon LLC

The Moon is a particularly harsh environment, even when compared to Mars, and the the Lunar Oasis will need to protect its floral inhabitant(s) from solar and cosmic radiation while providing a temperate environment able to supply and manage nutrients, water, carbon dioxide, and oxygen.

According to their press release more than a year ago, the ideal astro-plant is from the Brassica family (of mustard fame), which needs only 14 days to complete a growth-seed cycle.

As fate would have it, this is also the length of a lunar day.

Now, we haven’t heard from the Lunar Oasis guys in a while, (more than a year,) and this may indicate that the project has fallen away, which would be a pity.  Projects like these, which capture the spirit and imagination – something familiar taking hold on an alien world – are exactly what we need these days to kindle the public mind to engage with private space.

Anyone else heard anything?