{"id":77666,"date":"2026-04-15T08:53:43","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T15:53:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=77666"},"modified":"2026-04-21T09:24:33","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T16:24:33","slug":"space-farming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/space-farming\/","title":{"rendered":"Space Farming"},"content":{"rendered":"

What started as a project to compost human\u00a0stools\u00a0has turned into an experiment that could open the possibilities for colonizing another planet.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Jeff\u00a0Meilander<\/span><\/b>,\u00a0<\/span>research\u202f<\/span>scientist\u202fand program manager in\u00a0<\/span>Greg\u00a0Caporaso\u2019s\u00a0<\/span><\/b>lab\u202fat the Pathogen and Microbiome Institute (PMI) at NAU, has been working with composting to\u00a0improve crop growth\u00a0for\u00a0five\u00a0years. His\u00a0Ph.D.\u00a0work\u00a0focused on\u00a0composting\u00a0human\u00a0waste\u00a0to improve\u00a0global sanitation and\u00a0reduce\u00a0water contamination, while also examining sustainable ways to reuse the nutrients in human\u00a0feces\u00a0to improve soil health and crop yields.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

His most recent experiment, in collaboration with Elizabeth Gehret<\/strong>, who also works in Caporaso’s lab, started with the collection of human waste from Colorado River trips. The material collected was placed in large bins, mixed with Ponderosa <\/span>pine wood chips, composted above\u00a055\u00a0degrees Celsius\u00a0for three weeks and left to cure for\u00a0six\u00a0months. The\u00a0finished\u00a0human excrement compost (HEC)\u00a0will\u00a0now\u00a0be used in an experiment that could\u00a0change space travel.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Hand<\/a>\u201c<\/span>As this project evolved, we began collaborating with\u00a0<\/span>Nancy Johnson<\/span><\/b>, a Regents\u2019 Professor in the School of Earth and Sustainability, her lab research coordinator Sedona Spann<\/strong> as well as <\/span>Haley Sapers<\/span><\/b>, Michael Strane, <\/b>Christopher Edwards <\/span><\/b>and Laura Lee<\/span><\/b> from the Department of Astronomy and Planetary Science, which expanded our focus to include the potential application of finished compost in space exploration contexts,\u201d Meilander said. \u201cFor long-duration lunar or Mars missions, nothing can be wasted, including human waste itself. We need to create closed-loop, bioregenerative life support systems that compost human excrement and direct it back into food production.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For this experiment, Meilander and his team\u00a0are\u00a0using\u00a0regolith that simulates the soil found on the\u00a0Moon and Mars\u2019 surface.\u00a0They are also using arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) that form symbiotic relationships with plants by colonizing their roots, helping plants capture the nutrients\u00a0they\u00a0need\u00a0to grow.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe have\u00a0multiple\u00a0conditions where we have\u00a0added different combinations of\u00a0sterilized and\u00a0microbially active\u00a0HEC and AMF to the regolith,\u201d Meilander said. \u201cAs a result, we have\u00a0successfully\u00a0grown red leaf\u00a0lettuce and are pretty impressed with our\u00a0<\/span>preliminary results.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Lettuce<\/a>Cianna Brooks<\/span><\/b>, a Flinn Scholar and Interns-2-Scholars student majoring in biomedical science and business management, has been germinating seeds, making substrate mixtures and helping harvest plants for the experiment. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was brought right into the\u00a0experimentation,\u00a0and I am very excited to be part of this research,\u201d Brooks said. \u201cThis is my first\u00a0undergrad\u00a0research,\u00a0and I am super pumped to keep going with it.\u00a0In the lab, one day I might be organizing things and another day I might have my coat and gloves\u00a0on\u00a0to work with soil samples.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Phase one of the experiment has been successful in proving that plants can be grown using HEC. Phase two will be focused on the longitudinal changes and interactions of the microbial communities.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPhase two will be a generational study,\u201d Meilander said. \u201cWe will be doing essentially the same thing as phase one but on a larger and longer scale. Once we harvest the plants, we will collect samples of the rhizosphere and substrate and then replant in the same substrate for 10 generations. We will look at the microbial communities and see how they changed over time. Since we can’t take high-quality soil to space, this research can help us determine how to effectively and efficiently amend regolith, which microbial communities we’ll need to bring with us, and how to sustainably reuse waste products in ways that improve plant growth and reduce reliance on resupply missions.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Phase two will begin in the fall, with data analysis to follow shortly thereafter. After that, the group will publish their findings, hoping to open possibilities that could change future space exploration, where human waste could be recycled into a sustainable food system.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Northern<\/a>Mariana Laas | NAU Communications
\n(928) 523-5050 | mariana.laas@nau.edu<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What started as a project to compost human\u00a0stools\u00a0has turned into an experiment that could open the possibilities for colonizing another planet.\u00a0 Jeff\u00a0Meilander,\u00a0research\u202fscientist\u202fand program manager in\u00a0Greg\u00a0Caporaso\u2019s\u00a0lab\u202fat the Pathogen and Microbiome Institute (PMI) at NAU, has been working with composting to\u00a0improve crop growth\u00a0for\u00a0five\u00a0years. His\u00a0Ph.D.\u00a0work\u00a0focused on\u00a0composting\u00a0human\u00a0waste\u00a0to improve\u00a0global sanitation and\u00a0reduce\u00a0water contamination, while also examining sustainable ways to reuse the…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":77667,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-academics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}