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NASA Will Send Seeds to the Moon In 2015
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "The Telegraph reports that NASA plans to send turnip, cress, and basil seeds to the Moon inside a specially constructed canister, known as the Lunar Plant Growth Chamber. The chamber will carry enough air for 10 days and NASA says the air in the chamber would be adequate to allow the seeds to sprout and grow for five days. It is hoped that the latest experiment will help to pave the way for astronauts to grow their own food while living on a lunar base. NASA says it will use natural sunlight to germinate the plants inside the chamber and the seeds will grow on pieces of filter paper laden with nutrients. 'If we send plants and they thrive, then we probably can. Thriving plants are needed for life support — food, air, water — for colonists. And plants provide psychological comfort, as the popularity of the greenhouses in Antarctica and on the Space Station show.' The Lunar Plant Growth Chamber is expected to weigh around 2.2lbs and will also carry 10 seeds each of basil and turnips. Upon landing on the Moon a trigger would release a small reservoir of water to wet the filter paper and initiate the germination of the seeds. Photographs of the seedlings would be taken at regular intervals to monitor their progress and compare them to seedlings being growing in similar conditions on Earth."
Let's grow stuff anywhere we can. We are creators much more than destroyers.
When they send the next man there.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
Wouldn't it be easier to just send up a satellite and build a centrifuge to test different gravitational forces? Why spend all the pain to go and land on the Moon when you could simulate both the Moon and Mars in Earth orbit?
Why not something easier/more efficient like seaweed?
Unfortunately seems like more of a publicity thing.
Oh, great. Instead of mechanical, our "cylons" will be vegetation...
I wonder if they sent a mouse or appropriate sized o2 to co2 animal how long the seeds could grow. I guess you'd also need a heater to keep the mouse alive in the cold of space. They could send a little bit of radioactive material to help regulate the temp. It just seems a shame to go all the way to the moon for a 5 day experiment.
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what will they learn from growing stuff on the moon? have they not collected enough information as it is from the countless experiments performed in the ISS? it seems to me to be a waste of time or this is merely a cover story for something more secretive that they may be up to.
"NASA is performing an inhumane act by needlessly killing living organisms on Moon mission, wasting taxpayer money on a cheap publicity stunt", says animal rights group that became notorious a few posts ago for trying to grant chimps person status. "Plants are living things too, and one cannot simply destroy them for entertainment", said group spokesperson in an exclusive interview.
Beware seeding those torrents of Liberty!
The moon is pretty dry. If if this is supposed to be some proof-of-concept for growing food in a lunar base/colony, don't they need to address the larger issue of where such a garden would get its water?
If we have to transport the water to the moon as well as all of the raw materials (dirt, plant nutrients), what possible savings could there be against just stocking a base with MREs?
---- I'll take you in a Hunt deathmatch any day.
should monitor plant germination and subsequent growth for months, would be much more useful knowledge
Why would you not send Marigolds if you had a chance for such an experiment? Besides, we will need bees on the moon; so we're going to need flowers. Plants don't pollinate themselves.
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
Study The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds.
Shy Matilda "Tillie" Hunsdorfer prepares her experiment, involving marigolds raised from seeds exposed to radioactivity, for the science fair. She is, however, constantly thwarted by her mother Beatrice, who is self-centered and abusive, and by her extroverted and unstable sister Ruth, who submits to her mother's will. Over the course of the play, Beatrice constantly tries to stamp out any opportunities Tillie has of succeeding, due to her own lack of success in life. As the play progresses, the paths of the three characters diverge: Tillie wins the science fair through perseverance; Ruth attempts to stand up to her mother but has a nervous collapse at the end of the play, and Beatrice - driven to the verge of insanity by her deep-seated enmity towards everyone - kills the girls' pet rabbit Peter and ends up wallowing in her own perceived insignificance. Despite this, Tillie (who is much like her project's deformed but beautiful and hardy marigolds) secretly continues to believe that everyone is valuable.
Should have sent dandelion seeds, those damn things will grow anywhere! And they're technically edible...but still annoying.
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
And this time it's for a second-grade science experiment.
Great, more invasive species, we are destroyers much more than creators.
Now that we have perfected fucking up our planet, lets start on others.
I'm sorry, is there some delicate ecosystem of dust on the moon that we should protect?
http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
http://asi.org/adb/06/09/03/02/093/redhousing.html This 1996 publication "Breeding Plants for the Mars Environment" seemed to put more thought into what species are likliest to thrive (on Mars), and was less human-centric. It does seem to make sense to test lichens, cacti, a wider variety of plants known for resilience in addition to turnips and basil.
Gently reply
A day on the Moon lasts 29.5 of our Earth days. In other words, if you were standing on the surface of the Moon, it would take 29.5 days for the Sun to move entirely through the sky and return to its original position.
I'm not sure why they're not sending spores up first. Mycelium is capable of living off of the oxygen that's supposedly in the moon's soil (H2O) and is capable of providing carbon. And they don't care about light.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
http://www.his.com/~pshapiro/acorn.on.moon.html
After leaving the cast of The Simpson's, Cleatus Spuckler expanded his dirt farming operations into a multi-million dollar corporation. He has stated to shareholders that he plans to expand his operations onto the moon, to farm that beautiful lunar dirt.
signature is pants
That's my original proposal to NASA. Seems that they changed the scope of my idea.
China's plan is NOT sending man to moon until AFTER 2035
By then, if everything has gone according to plan, China would have a full fetch space station in the orbit which has the capability of assembling rockets (which are sent up part by part) and then launch them into whichever destination they are supposed to go to (be it moon or mars or beyond)
That is why China is not, and does not yet have any plan to build a rocket as powerful as the Saturn V rocket
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I'm just in the mood for a moon pie.
Need to brighten up the moon a bit ;-)
George MacDonald
Useful crop :-)
no, its the principle of the matter. you had better get your mommy to explain principles to you fucktard.
Ah yes, i forgot my childhood lesson of "don't disturb the dust on airless moons and planets".
But seriously, there is a difference between polluting the Earth and polluting the Moon. Not only is there nothing alive on the Moon. There will never be anything living on the moon unless humans put it there. If you are saying "The purity of the Moon must be kept!" then your principles are not something the majority of people would ever be interested in. I would rather see a giant corporate Disney theme park on the moon with Starbuck's coffee bulbs littering the moon-scape than a Moon that we cannot reach and left "pure".
http://soylentnews.org/~tibman