I never thought that one of the mission specialties for lunar encampments would be poissonnier, but I suppose someone has to judge when the sea bass have achieved the perfect fleshy firmness to contrast with the pastry when prepared en croute. On the moon.
The seabass eggs, all 200 of them, were settled in their module and ready to go. The ground crew had counted the eggs carefully, checked each for an embryo, and sealed them tightly within a curved dish filled precisely to the brim with seawater.
The countdown, and then—ignition! For two full minutes, the precious eggs suffered a riotous shaking as the rocket’s engines exploded to life, followed by another eight minutes of heightened juddering as they ascended to the heavens. These embryonic fish were on their way to low Earth orbit. Next stop: the moon.
Well, they haven’t actually left yet. But after a recent simulation designed to re-create the intense shaking of a typical takeoff, researchers in France found that the eggs survived the ordeal well. It’s a crucial discovery in the progress of the Lunar Hatch, a program that aims to determine whether astronauts could successfully rear fish on a future moon base.
Ultimately, Cyrille Przybyla, an aquaculture researcher at the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea who led the research, dreams of designing a lunar fish farm that uses water already on the moon to help feed residents of the future Moon Village set to be established by the European Space Agency (ESA). The Lunar Hatch project is just one of around 300 ideas currently under evaluation by the ESA, and may or may not be selected for the final mission. Przybyla’s hope, though, is to offer lunar residents fresh, appetizing, protein-rich food—not just packets of freeze-dried grub.
“I proposed the idea to send eggs, not fish, because eggs and embryos are very strong,” says Przybyla.
His experiments so far suggest that he is right. However, his team’s research has also suggested that not all fish are equally spaceworthy....
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