Sandy Ong

speaker

279 appearances 4 recordings 1 series first heard May 2026 last heard 11 Sep

Sandy Ong’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 4 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 1.

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Unexpected Elements · Light entertainment · 14 Aug 2026 podcast

We're not anywhere close to this being a reality and it probably won't happen in your lifetime or my lifetime, and that's because there are many, many obstacles that have to be overcome before space colonies can exist.

And one of the biggest challenges is how to grow food and have a sustainable food supply in space, because we can't keep transporting food from Earth.

Well, one reason is that lunar soil contains no organic matter, so it doesn't have things like nitrogen or carbon or phosphorus, and these are all essential nutrients, and without them plants simply cannot grow.

Rocks.

Rocks and dust.

Yes.

So there's a paper that came out just this past May where scientists from Japan's Aerospace Exploration Agency and Tohuku University describe how they've developed a portable device that can turn air into nitrogen fertilizer.

And they've actually successfully used this to grow rice seedlings in soil that is similar to what you would find on the moon's surface.

Alex, you're so easily won over.

But

So the device they built draws in nitrogen and oxygen from the air, and it converts this into a gas called dinitrogen pentoxide, so N2O5.

Now this gas is great because it can dissolve almost completely in water to form nitrate, and that's a form of nitrogen that the plants can readily absorb.

So when the researchers added this N two O five dissolved water to moon like soil in the lab, they found that they could successfully grow rice.

That's a really good spot, Alex.

So when they talk about using this device and it needing atmospheric air and electricity, well basically they're going to use this in an enclosed greenhouse type situation on the moon.

So it's not just going to be open on the moon's surface.

It's going to be in a controlled environment in a greenhouse.

Yes, so the scientists say that this nitrate-rich water helped to lower the alkalinity of lunar soil significantly.

So from just above pH 9 to a very plant-friendly pH 6.76.

Now, doing so helped to unlock all sorts of important nutrients in the soil, so calcium, magnesium, potassium, and it made it available to plant roots.

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