Israel, the country which famously made the desert bloom with drip irrigation, is now using tech to grow plants on the moon – and the man driving the project is a British-born Jew 

Professor Simon Barak’s team at a research institute located in Israel’s Negev Desert is planning to send a chamber of seeds and plants into space in 2025.

“The chamber will be hermetically sealed with the atmosphere on the Earth and will contain a tray of seeds and plants,” said Professor Barak who is coordinating plant biologists and imaging specialists at the Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. His team Lunaria One includes scientists from Australia and South Africa. 

“When it lands, the chamber will be powered up to provide lighting, water and warmth. The whole chamber cannot exceed 1.5 kilograms,” explained Professor Barak

“We are currently researching which plants to include. Some will be in the form of seeds and others will be what are known as resurrection plants which contain almost no water and can remain dormant for years until revived by some.” 

Simon Barak

Professor Simon Barak

Extreme temperatures and the lack of oxygen and atmosphere mean it is impossible to grow anything directly on the moon’s surface. 

They will travel aboard the Israel Space Agency’s Beresheet 2 spacecraft and Barak will be monitoring them live with Ben-Gurion University colleagues Professor Aaron Fait and Dr Tarin Paz-Kagan.

Beresheet

Beresheet 2 (Credit: Israel Aerospace Industries)

“We will be able to take digital photos and hopefully have a 3D imagine camera which will give us growth data, and an infrared camera which will enable us to monitor the water status of the plants.”

The journey will take four and a half months instead of the usual three days to travel to moon because after the rocket is launched the spaceship detaches and starts circling the Earth in larger and larger orbits until it intersects with the moon. 

“Once we land, we will only have a 72-hour window for the experiment because that’s all the power we have. Our other challenge will be watering the seeds and plants to ensure they grow enough to be imaged,” he said. 

If successful, the experiment will, he says, be the “first tiny steps in putting human communities on other planets.” 

“The Earth is finite, the sun will burn it out in about four billion years, so if we care about humanity, we need to reach for the stars.”

Beresheet 2

Illustration of Beresheet 2 on mission (Credit: Israel Aerospace Industries)

“The experiment has enormous value for life on Earth and humanity’s progress in space exploration. Examining plant growth under extreme conditions will help us [achieve] food security,” said SpaceIL chief executive Shimon Sarid.

Meanwhile, science fiction enthusiasts need not worry about Day of the Triffids scenario unfolding on the moon: “Once the power runs out, the plants will die and either be boiled or frozen during the daytime or nighttime, respectively,” said Professor Barak.