{"id":135003,"date":"2023-05-05T12:51:54","date_gmt":"2023-05-05T16:51:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/?p=135003"},"modified":"2026-01-30T13:25:51","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T18:25:51","slug":"from-outer-space-to-garden-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/from-outer-space-to-garden-space\/","title":{"rendered":"From Outer Space to Garden Space"},"content":{"rendered":"

Literally speaking, the moon is 238,000 miles from every schoolyard in the United States. Mars is an average of 140 million miles away. Figuratively, however, slices of the moon and Mars are landing in classrooms across the country. They arrive inside an 11-inch by  8-inch box. When students open the box, they pull out ph strips and an 11-pound bag of lab-made moon dust or Mars dust. There\u2019s also a list of guidelines for the Plant the Moon and Plant Mars Challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a student in kindergarten through high school, this has to be one of the coolest projects they\u2019ll ever do,\u201d says industrial engineering<\/a> major Konrad Krol, who also serves as the operations director for UCF\u2019s Exolith Lab<\/a>, maker of the extraterrestrial \u201csoils.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plant the Moon and Plant Mars Challenges are outgrowths of a partnership between Exolith and researchers at NASA and UCF. The soils in each kit are technically \u201csimulated regoliths\u201d \u2014 replicates of the materials you\u2019d find on the surfaces of the moon and Mars. They can be rooted back to samples NASA has collected over the years from the real moon and data collected from the real Mars. Researchers use the samples and data to identify mineral compositions on extraterrestrial bodies (the moon, Mars, Mercury, and asteroids). They then determine which minerals here on Earth most closely mirror the real thing. Exolith uses those findings to create recipes for the simulants.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we make is as close to the real thing that you can find,\u201d says Krol. \u201cI\u2019m still amazed every time I put my hands in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two years ago, the teams at UCF and NASA decided it would be a good idea to allow curious K-12 students to put their hands in it, too. The Plant the Moon and Plant Mars Challenges bring to mind scenes from the movies Apollo 13<\/em> andThe Martian<\/em>: You have 10 weeks to take what you find in the box and grow a whole-plant meal, as if you\u2019re a hungry astronaut trying to live off the fat of another planet.<\/p>\n

As science projects go, how do you top that? The kit alone is a wonder of sorts.<\/p>\n