take off! Pacific Northwest National Lab's microbial study could pave the way for future farmers on Mars
An experiment on its way to the International Space Station focuses on a subject as mundane as soil, but could be key to growing crops in space.
The NASA-funded experiment — known as Dynamics of Microbiomes in Space, or DynaMoS — is being conducted by researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. DynaMoS utilizes soil and bacteria collected at the Washington State University field site in Prosser, Wash.
“Soil microbes are hidden players of life support systems on planet Earth,” PNNL chief scientist Janet Jansson, principal investigator for the DynaMoS experiment, explained during a pre-launch press conference. Bacteria work to break down organic matter and provide nutrients for growing plants.
Space missions could expand the reach of microbes beyond our home planet.
“Soil microbes can help make conditions on the lunar and Martian surfaces more favorable for plant growth,” Jansson said. “They could also be used to help grow crops on the space station and during long-term spaceflight.”
To find out how the space environment affects the work done by soil microbes, scientists packed 52 test tubes filled with soil laden with eight types of bacteria aboard a SpaceX Dragon robotic cargo capsule bound for the space station. Another 52 tubes were kept in the laboratory for comparison.
The delivery was originally scheduled to lift off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in June. But the attempt was aborted when engineers detected an elevated hydrazine propellant reading while the Naga was being refueled.
Today’s launch, on the other hand, went smoothly. Minutes after SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket was launched, the first stage booster landed on the drone ship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean, while Dragon continued its robotic journey into orbit.
The schedule calls for Dragon to meet with the space station on Saturday, delivering about 5,800 pounds of supplies and experiments — including DynaMoS.
PNNL researchers plan to monitor how well the bacteria in the soil samples break down a substance known as chitin, which is found in the exoskeleton of insects and the cell walls of fungi. Chitin is the second most abundant type of polysaccharide in the world, after cellulose, and serves as a common food source for microbes.
When microbes consume chitin, they produce nutrients for other organisms in the soil. Jansson said measuring how well microbes eat chitin would tell scientists how the carbon cycle process in space might be affected by factors including zero gravity, exposure to space radiation and changing carbon dioxide levels.
“We wanted to have something that requires an interacting community to unravel,” Jansson told GeekWire. “Chitin is a complex polymer, so it is difficult for one organism to degrade it on its own.”
Each test tube set will undergo sampling at four different times for 12 weeks. And when space samples are brought back from orbit, they will be compared to laboratory samples living on Earth.
“We’ve done some initial experiments just to see who played well with whom,” Jansson said. “Our hypothesis is that in the space environment, these interactions may change due to space conditions. For example, in microgravity, it may be more difficult for these different species to find each other.”
Experimental results can guide scientists as they work out a recipe for making soil suitable for growing crops on a spacecraft, on the moon or on Mars. Who knows? A mix of bacteria from eastern Washington state might optimize potato cropping on the Red Planet.
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