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Growing Plants In Lunar Gravity
smooth wombat writes "If everything goes according to plan, an experiment designed to test whether plants can grow in the limited lunar gravity will hitch a ride with a competitor for the Google Lunar X Prize. 'The current prototype for the greenhouse is a 15-inch-high (37.5-centimeter-high) reinforced glass cylinder that's about 7 inches (18 centimeters) wide on the bottom. Seeds for a rapid-cycle type of Brassica plant — basically, mustard seeds — would be planted in Earth soil within the container.' The press release from Paragon Space Development Corporation outlines its partnership with Odyssey Moon to be the first to grow a plant on another world. In addition to the experiment, Paragon will be helping Odyssey with the thermal control system and lander design. To win the prize, Odyssey must land its craft on the lunar surface by the end of 2014."
It took me like three tries before I stopped reading the headline as "Growing Planets in Lunar Gravity"
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I was interested in seeing if it was like a biosphere, or how much regulation would be required. Unfortunately (according to TFA), they haven't actually designed anything yet.
It will also be interesting to see how the plants handle having a lunar day to complete their life cycle. It would be very cool if the plants were able to perpetuate for a while - even if only for a few days/cycles.
I for one will be quite interested in how this develops...
Thus any differences between earth grav and 1/6 earth grav are likely to be negligible. Dumbest experiment ever.
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I would think that plants would grow faster with little to no gravity.
Maybe. But the question might be more related to how healthy or productive the plants are. Even on Earth we can accelerate plant growth by (as an example) growing light adapted plants in low-light conditions with ample nutrients, or by introducing growth hormones such as gibberellins or adjusting the photoperiod. Often the plants are not 'healthy' though. Stem elongation, weak cell walls, abnormal tugor, reduced or inhibited fecundity all may exhibit themselves. So, to me, the question isn't whether it's possible (it probably is), but whether or not the result is a healthy plant that is able to reproduce and/or meet some other goal like production yields (in the case of vegetative growth then I guess that could easily be met, in the case of grain [seed] production I think it might be harder...)
Couldn't this same experiment be done on a centrifuge in Earth's gravity? Centrifuges usually are used to increase apparent gravity, but if it were shaped so that the plant and soil faced outward, at the right speed, wouldn't one be able to mimic that 1/6 g?
No. A centrifuge can only add to gravity.
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Speak for yourself, I just don't have access to a lab and all of those cool gadgets. :)
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If you are taking off with a sack of seeds to colonize the moon, and planning to live off the land, like early pioneers, you might want to be certain that your plants will grow there.
The European South African settlers who ventured too far north were screwed when they discovered that their plants would not grow in the tropics.
(I hear the voices of thousands of Slashdotters screaming, "Are you suggesting that the moon has a tropical climate?")
And the choice of mustard seeds is not a bad one, from a survivalist view: I remember many a nights during my cashless college days, when dinner was a "Mustard Sandwich" . . . mustard on bread. As Benjamin Franklin wrote, "Hunger never saw bad bread."
But before I sign up for the Moon Colony Mission, I would like to know the effects of Lunar Gravity on my preferred diet: Philly Cheesesteaks, beer, canned Chilli, chips, Taco Cabana take-out, another cheesesteak, more beer . . .
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Yes, that was my thought to. I was thinking more about larger plants though. Would fruit still grow the same shape under lunar gravity? Would you have to ration water to the plants so they don't suck up to much water and collapse? Would they have similar problems with nutrient loss as we do with calcium? Could be a very interesting experiment indeed.
It does appear there have been some preliminary studies done. Including growing Arabidopsis thaliana on the ISS. And rice on the Space Shuttle STS-95 mission. The abstract does mention some elongation in the coleoptile of the rice. I would imagine the bigger the plant, the bigger the changes that would develop. It is, after all, studying the effect of gravity.
I reserve the write to mangle english.
On the other hand, it might be useful to run a centrifuge on earth and emulate say 1g + n*0.1g for n = 0 to 10. We could look at the resulting curve and extrapolate backwards. That of course assumes the extrapolation is meaningful, but it might give a rough indication of what to expect with very little expenditure.
In August 1997, I sealed a 20L glass carboy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carboy) with desinfected soil and watertrumpet plants (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptocoryne). The water is only 40 mm deep just covering to root system. It just thrives!
There are seasonal deaths of individual leaves and various succesions of fungus growths, in white, yellow and brown. The "ecosystem" has not crashed yet on me.
However, I have not yet tested low gravity. That would be an effort beyond my budget...
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But before I sign up for the Moon Colony Mission, I would like to know the effects of Lunar Gravity on my preferred diet: Philly Cheesesteaks, beer, canned Chilli, chips, Taco Cabana take-out, another cheesesteak, more beer . . .
With that diet, I'd be more worried about the effects of methane buildup on the lunar habs..
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The biggest problem with the soil is that it's sharp. There's no weathering on the moon; the "soil" is dust and grit with very sharp points and edges. The plants would be enduring constant irritation and injury.
Of course, you could sift the dust through a concentrated beam of sunlight and melt it into little spheroids. That would still be cheaper than grinding or importing something softer. The point is, you'd have to process your lunar resource of choice somehow; you can't use it "straight up."
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