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Lighting Technologies For Space Farming
dlkf writes: "Space.com has an excellent article discussing current technologies in light sources for growing plants in space. ".. .the high-tech lighting systems here have been used to grow potatoes, sweet potatoes, lettuce, spinach, radishes, wheat onion and a whole plethora of herbs such as marjoram and parsley." The main problems for the lighting sources were energy usage, lifetime of light source and heat generation. To address these issues researchers are using both LED and microwave technology." The electrical advantages of LED growlamps may soon become manifest here on Earth, too.
Several years ago I worked in a university lab that had a prototype of a 1 kW sulfur microwave lamp. It was very bright, but the light had a distinctive green tint. After a while your eyes would adapt, but then when you looked out the window (or at anything lit with a "conventional" light source) everything looked pink. Maybe the newer models have solved this problem, but if not I wouldn't want it as indoor lighting.
As for getting your skin colouring, one of the advantages of the sulfur lamp was that it put out much less UV radiation than other light sources. Good for museums where the UV would damage old paintings and documents; bad for getting a tan in your cubicle.