The Science You’ve Enabled

Episode Summary

Executive Summary: This episode spotlights the Planetary Society’s 2023 STEP grants, awarded to two research teams: one using hypersaline lakes in British Columbia as Mars/ocean-world analogs to study habitability and remote sensing, and another comparing hydroponics with regolith-based agriculture for Moon and Mars food production. The show also covers space news, a community update, and Bruce Betts’ “What’s Up.”

Main Topics: STEP Grants and the Society’s funding model: Bruce Betts explains how STEP grants use member-supported, open international competition to fund niche science and technology projects that can be accelerated by public support. Hypersaline lakes as planetary analogs: Jacob Buffo describes fieldwork in extremely salty, shallow lakes in British Columbia to study geology, biology, and remote-sensing signatures relevant to Mars, Europa, Enceladus, and possibly Titan. Top-down exploration strategy for life detection: The Buffo project aims to emulate planetary exploration workflows—from orbital sensing to ground sampling—to improve future target selection and avoid wasting mission resources. Food production systems for lunar and Martian agriculture: Andrew Palmer and Laura Fakrell discuss testing whether hydroponics or regolith-based agriculture is better for different crops and mission scenarios, with emphasis on long-term sustainability and crew support. Microbiome, waste, and crop trade-offs: The agriculture project highlights that plant-microbe relationships, waste recycling, and crop type strongly affect whether hydroponics or regolith-based systems are more practical off-Earth. Planetary Radio community and space news: The episode includes headlines about Pluto, Uranus, NASA’s Blue Origin lander selection, a new digital member community, and Bruce Betts’ weekly sky update and space history segment.

Key Arguments: STEP grants allow the Planetary Society to fund innovative projects that may not fit large traditional grant portfolios but can meaningfully advance planetary science and exploration. Citizen science can help train AI to distinguish extraterrestrial signals from human radio interference in SETI work. Hypersaline lakes are valuable analog environments because they mimic some chemical and physical conditions expected on Mars and ocean worlds, while remaining accessible for repeated fieldwork. Remote sensing must be validated on Earth before being used to choose landing or sampling sites on other worlds, because poor targeting wastes time and resources in expensive missions. Future planetary agriculture will likely require multiple production pathways rather than one universal method; crop type, mission duration, and waste handling all matter. Microbial relationships are critical to plant health and may be harder to reproduce in hydroponic systems, making regolith-based systems potentially advantageous for certain crops and long-duration settlements. The project design leverages existing grants, labs, and expertise, with STEP funds enabling coordination, field trips, and dedicated student support rather than replacing larger funding sources.

Data Points: STEP grant round: 2nd round - Bruce Betts notes these are the second STEP grant winners since the program began. Projects funded in 2023 STEP round: 2 - Two teams were selected: Buffo’s hypersaline-lake project and Palmer’s agriculture project. Full proposals invited: 4 - Bruce says four full proposals were invited after pre-proposal review. Buffo team size: 7 people - Buffo says the project team will have seven total members. Graduate-student/recent-PhD co-investigators: about half - Buffo emphasizes that roughly half the co-investigators are graduate students or recent PhDs. Field trips planned: 4 trips - Buffo’s team plans two dry-season trips and two winter trips. Dry-season temperature: 40°C / 100°F - Buffo describes the lakes becoming extremely hot and dry in summer. Winter temperature: -40 to -50 - Buffo describes severe winter cold at the study sites. Lake depth: 10 to 50 centimeters - Buffo says the lakes are very shallow, often only 10–50 cm thick. Lake size: 1 to 7 acres - Buffo says some lakes are an acre or two, others 5–7 acres. Salinity of brines: 20% to 30% salt - Buffo describes highly concentrated brines where brine shrimp still live. Prize for contest winner: Good Night Oppy 12-ounce thermal mug - Bruce announces the prize for the “Where in the solar system?” contest. Next contest deadline: June 7, 8 a.m. Pacific - Listeners have until June 7 at 8 a.m. PT to answer the sleeping-in-space question.

Pivotal Quotes: "We created the STEP Grant program to help fill out our science and technology portfolio of things that we support, niches that we can fill, that our members as a group can support and make a difference in science and technology developments." — Bruce Betts: Explaining the purpose of the Planetary Society’s STEP grant program. "We think some of those compositions have been seen on Mars and these ocean worlds like Europa and Enceladus. So we kind of want to go up there and use these as our little planetary laboratory." — Jacob Buffo: Describing why hypersaline lakes in British Columbia are useful analogs. "We believe that there's going to be a relationship that there's not going to be a right answer for hydroponics or regolith. It's going to depend on the type of crop that you're trying to grow." — Andrew Palmer: Summarizing the core hypothesis of the lunar/Martian agriculture project.

Implications: These projects push astrobiology and space agriculture from theory toward operational planning, helping future missions choose targets and grow food more sustainably. They also show how member-supported science can enable high-impact, early-career research.