Arizona researchers have already figured out how to grow fresh, leafy vegetables at the most remote spot on Earth. Now, they want to pursue a new agricultural challenge: the moon.

The research team, which has been growing fruits and vegetables at the South Pole for the past 18 months, is building a chamber capable of raising vegetables in space. The inflatable chamber will fit into a rocket and run off of sunshine and recycled water.

The team is motivated by this challenge: figuring out ways to harness and recycle energy and water in space while providing astronauts with a tasty salad.

"You always lust for the things you can't have," said Phil Sadler, a Tempe botanist who built the team's "growth chamber" that produces fruits and vegetables at the South Pole.

Sadler and the University of Arizona's Controlled Environment Agricultural Center in Tucson will build a model and seek the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's approval to include it as part of the agency's planned lunar station on the moon. Although other researchers will pitch their projects to NASA officials, too, the Arizona team believes the results of 1 1/2 years of automated vegetable production at the South Pole bolster its chances to capture some seed money.

Sadler and Gene Giacomelli, who directs the controlled environmental center, are still tinkering with the final design of the space chamber.

The lunar chamber will be different from the South Pole chamber in two key ways: shape and power source.

The South Pole chamber is a 250-square-foot box. The inflatable space chamber will be oblong, or sausage-shaped, so it can easily fold into a rocket.

The South Pole chamber, which is inside a building that shields it from the sun, runs off a diesel-powered generator. The space chamber will be powered by renewable energy, likely sunlight, captured by solar panels and fed through fiber-optic cables.

"Energy is a limiting factor in space," Sadler said. "If you have energy and water, you can survive anywhere in the galaxy."

Sadler and Giacomelli have been kicking around the idea of building a space chamber for a couple of years. The main reason is that the South Pole chamber, which is automated and operates remotely, has been so successful.

The South Pole chamber has operated since June 2005, producing enough lettuce, cucumbers and other vegetables to provide each of the 75 or so scientists there with two salads each day.

Several students have visited the remote South Pole chamber to monitor its progress and talk with scientists who eat the 60 pounds of food the chamber produces each week.

UA graduate student Lane Patterson recently returned from a one-year stint at the South Pole. He said the chamber yielded more food than scientists could eat.

Though the South Pole chamber is designed to produce food, it also provides warmth and light for scientists who must endure a harsh, frozen climate.

Scientists routinely hang out in a small sitting room next to the chamber, taking in the warmth, light and scent of fresh veggies. Some even tend personal gardens in a space next to the chamber.

It is a stark contrast to the environment outside the South Pole station.

Ice, wind and darkness make even routine trips outside the station dangerous. Temperatures average more than 50 degrees below zero. Once outside, South Pole workers must carry lights and inform others by radio of their whereabouts.

Because the food chamber thrives in those harsh conditions, Sadler and Giacomelli believe it will easily survive on the moon.

They expect to show NASA a model space chamber within three to six months.