Seeding Exploration

Twelve years to get 12 grams. Twelve years of research and planning, of conducting experiments with simulated material, of traveling to the world’s most inhospitable environments. Twelve years of writing proposals and being told no.

University of Florida research scientists Rob Ferl and Anna-Lisa Paul weren’t asking NASA for just 12 grams of lunar regolith — basically dust and dirt from the moon — but that was the payoff in 2022 for their perseverance. It’s about the same volume of material you’d find inside a Keurig coffee pod. NASA saw it as a finite resource collected more than 50 years ago by the first and last astronauts to walk on the moon. The experiments Ferl and Paul wanted to do would alter it permanently.

The reluctance endured even though the space agency has honored them repeatedly for their work. In 2015, they were awarded for the “Most Compelling Science” on the International Space Station for experiments that countered conventional wisdom about root growth in microgravity environments. Each won NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal — Ferl in 2016 and Paul in 2018.

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