this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2026
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Lunar regolith is pretty nasty stuff that is sharp and sticks to everything. It’s pretty damaging to lungs, equipment, etc. I’d imagine using it as a raw material for cultivation would bring about some challenges.
I’ve also learned about it being sharp. What I haven’t heard answered is this. It’s sharp because there’s no weather to wear it down. If there were, how easily would it wear down? Does it crumble the second anything touches it? Being sharp and staying sharp are two different things. How much of a threat is this stuff, actually?
Sure, but the alternative is to stop destroying our own soils and respect our ecosystem, and humanity has proven it will take on any challenge except cleaning up after ourselves
Look at a Saturn V. Look at a bag of chickpeas. If you think somehow launching a Saturn V (at a minimum) to get back a bag of chickpeas is somehow better for our ecosystem, I think I see why humanity is doomed.
Space Nuttery is not the solution to anything.
I was thinking this was future planning for the other direction. While actually having a permanent colony of civilians on the moon is unrealistic, having a layover/fueling station on the moon that will have a small population of researchers, engineers, etc. is actually pretty feasible, and any mass sent up there will still be expensive. Shipping seeds is significantly cheaper than shipping food, and dirt is heavy, so you want to ship as little of it as possible. If it's possible to grow stuff in lunar soil, that drastically decreases the amount of mass that needs to be sent.
That’s exactly what I mean - we come up with all sorts of madness to grow food and obtain resources from further away. And society completely glosses over how impractical and wasteful it all is.
Meanwhile, what we could use is treat our planet properly and succeed with the amazing gifts it already provides. We are the only species that seems hell bent on sh*tting where we eat, and we come up with these inefficient strategies all to avoid cleaning up after ourselves
Oh, you're right, I didn't register your meaning, I get so upset whenever I see Space Nuttery I lose all civility.
Yah people skipping over this really don't get how hard it is to grow plants in what's basically finely ground glass. We take for granted that we have stuff on Earth called "soil" because hot damn, that shit doesn't exist anywhere else that we know of. Soil is a product of millions of years of complex interactions between plants, bacteria and water and fungus and other life forms. Everywhere else in the solar system you go, all you get is the equivalent of pulverized asphalt.
I have this idea that if aliens ever did invade because they want some resource we have, it certainly wouldn't be water or minerals, but the one thing we have here that you can't find anywhere else is fertile soil. I just don't know how exciting of a story you can weave around dirt-seeking aliens.
I don't think we're ever going to see a permanent human settlement off our world, at least not in our lifetime, but it's good to know that our granddroids have a chance. Assuming they actually need to grow plants out there.
we'd be the compost planet. we'd live on their food scraps, and they'd harvest the results
That’s true—water is abundant in the solar system, but soil is magical stuff. The perchlorates in Martian regolith are especially nasty. Not going to be growing ‘taters like Matt Damon does in The Martian anytime soon.
Perchlorates are water-soluble, and there is lots of ice on Mars. But people won't live there sustainably, so there is no point to it.
Actually, you only need ground bedrock, some organic matter and some bugs & and worms and a few years (like, 2 to 6). And Mykorrhiza and water of course, for most plants.
But the Moon is special in that it doesn't have erosion, the "dust" is in the form of microscopic shards, sticky and abrasive.
While dry desert planets like Mars – with erosion — have mostly the Australian kind of fine dust, which also sticks to everything, but is not abrasive.
Btw, there's also Orsol farming; growing them on a sponge, with nothing but some fertilizer juice. Though they are usually more bland, since they lack some micronutrients (due to the lack of Mykorrhiza, among others).
Funny I didn't know that word "Orsol". Guess it's another word coming directly from the French : "Hors-sol" (literally "out-of-the-ground" or "off-ground") which is used for growing plants in an artificial substrate.
It's coarse and rough and irritating and gets everywhere.