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NASA's Next Frontier: Growing Plants On the Moon
An anonymous reader writes in with news about a NASA project that aims to grow plants on the moon in specially made containers. "In 2015, NASA will attempt to make history by growing plants on the Moon. If they are successful, it will be the first time humans have ever brought life to another planetary body. The Lunar Plant Growth Habitat team, a group of NASA scientists, contractors, students and volunteers, is finally bringing to life an idea that has been discussed and debated for decades. They will try to grow arabidopsis, basil, sunflowers, and turnips in coffee-can-sized aluminum cylinders that will serve as plant habitats. But these are no ordinary containers – they’re packed to the brim with cameras, sensors, and electronics that will allow the team to receive image broadcasts of the plants as they grow. These habitats will have to be able to successfully regulate their own temperature, water intake, and power supply in order to brave the harsh lunar climate."
...watching grass grow.
Ok this is awesome.
Its been on my wishlist for unmanned travel that we'd try packaging up Earth plants and sending them to grow on alien worlds in some way. The Moon is a good starting point - Elon Musk got into SpaceX because he wanted to do it on Mars with a Greenhouse.
Personally I wish we'd just man up and shoot the appropriate organisms into Venus' atmosphere to start the terraforming process.
...it will be the first time humans have ever brought life to another planetary body.
So NASA is finally admitting that it never sent life [Astronauts] to another planetary body. Am guessing they may have sent dead ones in order to be able truthfully say yes we sent astronauts to the moon.
The "coffee can" is a US unit unknown to the rest of the world. We buy our coffee in packets or jars (of differing sizes). How big is a coffee can?
How much will it cost me if I want to buy one of those turnip?
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
Those majestic plants 'braving the harsh lunar climate'.
You just might end up with something like this.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Please seek psychiatric help. At the very least, read some books on sceptical/scientific/critical thinking and actively debate the idea that you might be experiencing delusions.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
From TFA:
This experiment will test whether plants can survive radiation, flourish in partial gravity, and thrive in a small, controlled environment.
We can (and have) test all those things here on Earth. IIRC, NASA successfully grew lettuce in zero-g on a shuttle mission.
The moon is a terrible place to grow plants:
- 13-day/night cycle
- 275 Kelvin temperature variation
- 25 rem/yr radiation with no solar flare protection
- no water
- lunar regolith useless as soil
In other words you have to take the whole environment with you. Growing plants on a scale sufficient to be considered food on the moon is a long way off.
It makes for a good kids public outreach program, but let's be realistic: the moon is basically good for 2 things - a huge radio telescope on the far side, and the 1-50 ppb He-3 in the lunar regolith. By the time we're ready to do those things, robots will be good enough to do it all for us.
...GREEN FINGERS,
A Russian scientist secretly breeds a cactus-type plant to survive on the moon.
He is eventually killed by it - in order for the plant to spread its seeds on a planet with no wind, he had arranged for it to fire the seeds out in the way some plants do on Earth. And. observing one at close quarters, his plexiglass helmet is shattered by one of the tough seed-pods being ejected...
Clarke was a very good visionary engineer. Many of the things he predicted have come to pass. Almost certainly any moon-plant which can survive outside will use a similar seed-spreading mechanism...
They should plant weed and dandelions. It will grow anywhere. Pretty soon the whole moon will be green.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
They Live (1988)
See the movie. It's a thrilling satire about consumerism. Everything is trying to sell you something, especially the billboards.
It's also flat-out wrong on the first point. No, it is not the first time humans have ever brought life to another planetary body, even if by life you read an implication that they mean non-human life.
We've brought all manner of microscopic life with us -- much of it inside or on the surface of us -- when we were on the moon previously. Doubtless at least some amount has been sent as microscopic residue even on unmanned missions. OK, the vast majority of the lunar passengers also came back with us, and it's unlikely any of what we've unintentionally brought along has survived, but to say that we've never brought life to another planetary body? Demonstrably not true.
Think about it. What's needed is a really high (pun intended) profit margin product to drive space exploration. Think how much stoners would pay for pot grown on the moon. Astronomical profit!
Unlike mineral extraction, there is minimal extra-terrestrial processing involved. It's like a sample and return mission, except you don't have to find anything.
Now we can finally fill in item number two:
1) Grow pot on Moon
2) Return it to Earth.
3) Profit!
Why is Snark Required?
Apollo 12 retrieved some equipment, a camera from Surveyor 3, from the moon and they found that some bacterium (streptococcus miti) had apparently survived (according to some liberal definition of "survived", in spore form). Nowadays they have planetary protection officers like Catharine A. Conley to make sure that spacecraft do not contaminate other celestial bodies.
Incidentally, the planetary protection office is also responsible at NASA for the protection of earth against alien invasions, although it is unlikely they would play a major role int he decision process if that occured - for the US, United States Space Command would take over and, in case of a war, be swiftly destroyed by kinetic energy weapons.
Moon grown Cannabis will get you real high I suppose.
This might sound a bit stupid, but in my opinion it is more interesting to see how the soil survives than how the plants do. Most people think soil is dead material, while in fact it is full with activity of bacteria, fungi, insects, earthworms, nematodes and more. Growing anything usefull requires good soil. Once we know how soil biology behaves in Lunar conditions, we might be able to come up with a way to convert Lunar regolith into useable soil.
While regolith ain't soil, it can be used as a basic substrate which hearty weeds wouldn't complain about.
ok, coffee can sized aluminum containers? Clearly you've not been reading High Times. Rather than trying to invent new ways to grow plants in confined spaces with limited resources and light, why not ask the people who've been doing it for decades?
When the phase of the moon is in the dark, what would have to be done?
It think that's a very optimistic statement.
Knowledge is power; knowledge shared is power lost.
Intentionality is implied when someone uses the word "brought" without qualification. I really doubt someone would've understood this to mean "when human beings travelled to the moon, they did so in a state of complete sterility".
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
I'm a farmer on the moon
I till with a harpoon
But there ain't water
So I have my daughter
Sing this jaunty tune!
Take it Crushinator!
Won't work. The cow will jump over the moon.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
"Please seek psychiatric help."
Please seek help in spotting cultural references. Get the hell off your computer, and step the fuck outside and pay attention.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Intentionality is implied when someone uses the word "brought" without qualification.
Not at all. For example, diseases are "brought" along with human activity all the time unintentionally.
I think they're starting with plants (that require carbon dioxide to create food) when there's no carbon dioxide on the moon, at least not where plants could utilize it for photosynthesis, when what I think would be better, and probably more in tune with how Nature works, would be fungi of a wide variety. Fungi don't need carbon dioxide from the air, they use oxygen from the ground. The moon has water in the form of ice all in the soil, we're told. Fungi would be so much better to start off with for so many reasons, but the main one being that they could prepare the soil as well as the atmosphere for more Earth-like activity.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
They must be on the first ship so everything is ready when the rest of us get there.
Didn't they do that all the times they landed on the moon in the 60's and 70's?
In C++, your friends can see your privates.
I'm a doctor, not an gardener!
This will be how Triffids are created, they'll come back and eat all of humanity
Btw Triffids were a blueprint for modern zombie fiction as well as the oldest "bite infection turning into biter " came from original Peyo Smurf comics pre-zombie movies
This is Elon's idea for mars. I think that the same set-up will be sent to both the moon and mars. It should prove to be interesting.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Survived three years, but we haven't been there for how long now? And that's on the moon, which is a relatively benign environment compared to the places unmanned probes have been sent to and thru.
And it's arguable that the "surviving" bacteria weren't anything of the kind: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reports_of_Streptococcus_mitis_on_the_Moon
No, it isn't. No intentionality is implied or required in bringing something somewhere, as we have learned to the detriment of our own species more than once.
Google "diseases brought to the new world", and note the many references even from university research using the word "brought" in the sense that I used it. Unless, of course, you believe early explorers practiced intentional germ warfare.
Good luck bringing those tasty turnips to market, NASA! :-)
Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)