Florida Institute of Technology Kissimmee, Florida
Body of Abstract: ABSTRACT: One of the challenges a human mission to Mars faces is food security. A supply of pre-packed, processed food large enough to support a multi-year mission would be costly and result in a tradeoff between nutrition and palatability. As a result, Martian agriculture must be developed to provide fresh food. To make this more feasible, in-situ resource utilization would also include Martian regolith as part of growing plants on Mars. Finding an ideal crop for Martian agriculture is difficult as many parameters must be considered such as novel uses, plant architecture, nutrition, stress tolerance, time to harvest, and yield. In this study, the aquatic plant duckweed (Lemna minor) is proposed as an ideal plant that meets those criteria. Duckweed is favorable as a space crop due to its small size, tolerance of stresses, novel non-food uses, and its nutritional value - roughly 40% of biomass is protein. Here, duckweed was grown using several regolith simulants submerged in water. The growth of duckweed in these conditions is examined, and so is submerged regolith to see if water contact is able to break down minerals to provide nutrients for duckweed.