The Lunar Hatch program run by Ifremer aims to fertilize fish eggs and hatch them on the Moon. The ultimate goal of this project is to provide fresh fish to astronauts who will reside on the European Space Agency’s future lunar base.
After tomatoes and salads grown in space, researchers are exploring the possibility of practicing aquaculture on the moon. New rather conclusive results have just been published on Monday October 9.
>> Artemis mission: lunar houses under study for a permanent NASA base
If astronauts one day settle on the moon, in addition to the vegetables they will grow, the ideal would also be for them to be able to eat proteins of animal origin. So why not raise fish on site? They would grow in an aquarium, fed by water already present on the moon. Water that would be recycled in a closed circuit. Ifremer, the French research institute for the exploitation of the sea, launched a vast research program a few years ago, with the European Space Agency. The program is called Lunar Hatch. The first results which have just been published already show, this is the first step, that fish eggs are indeed capable of resisting the journey to the Moon and hatching normally afterwards, which was not easy.
What resistance to cosmic radiation
There was doubt about the ability to withstand the conditions of takeoff and weightlessness afterwards. But the work of Ifremer has just shown it: when hundreds of sea bass eggs, which is a model fish for aquaculture, are subjected in the laboratory to vibrations equivalent to the launch of the Soyuz rocket, they develop and hatch normally. Same thing when we subject them to the acceleration of the rocket on takeoff and or weightlessness.
It remains to verify their resistance to cosmic radiation. The experiment is underway with the collaboration of IRSN, the national institute for radioprotection and nuclear safety, but until this stage, the fish farming project in space does not seem so lunar than that.
If the results remain conclusive, the next step will be to send several capsules filled with fish eggs into space, in low orbit, in the coming years to study their behavior. Ultimately, indicates Ifremer, the idea is to size a farm to provide fresh fish on the Moon twice a week for seven astronauts. The supply of fish eggs would occur approximately every six months or so.