Ask HN: Thought experiment..growing food on Moon for Artemis project - jelliclesfarm
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PaulHoule
I don't think there is anything hard about it.

If you can grow a pot plant in your closet with LED lights, you can grow some
other kind of plant on the moon.

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jelliclesfarm
Wouldn’t it make more sense to figure out a lunar-agriculture schema rather
than replicate what we have done on earth?

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gus_massa
Plants need water, light, CO2 and some nutrients, here and on the Moon. What
differences you expect in the cultivation methods?

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jelliclesfarm
I don’t think earth farming methods are efficient. Should we be growing plants
for our food would be my first question.

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PaulHoule
To have something fresh to eat, yes.

It is an interesting question if it is cheaper to send up food in cans vs send
up infrastructure for growing food indoors.

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gus_massa
Perhaps the main difference is that on Earth, the surface area with good
illumination and air is essentially free (compared to the Moon).

My guess is that instead of a big field, it's much better to have some solar
panels to collect the sunlight, transform it into electricity and use the
electricity in LEDs. So your cultivation are can be a cube or semi sphere or
other geometric shape with high volume to surface ratio.

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PaulHoule
During the day you can let light in through a window.

In the night solar power will not be available and the night lasts two
weeks...

Might not be such a problem if you can prevent heat loss and schedule growth
around the natural day. Perhaps you grow a crop that takes two weeks, perhaps
you grow something that can go dormant for two weeks and burst to active
growth quickly.

