NASA's Moon Shot Needs Broader Horizons

[digitS']

What the heck?

NASA thinks it's gonna learn lots about growing plants on the moon with this?

Nasa to grow plants on the moon by 2015 (link)

What about this?? An indoor plant that requires no care for 50 years? (TEG link)

Dang! Monitor some basil seeds for "5 to 10 days." Shoot.

Steve

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

read that one last night too. i was thinking how are they going to keep those plants from fully freezing since there is no atmosphere to help keep the plants insulated even in their little bio-dome capsules? who's going to make sure the moon dust doesn't fully cover over the plant over time?

 

[digitS']

Chickie'sMoma, I realize that the moon has long nights. Likely to get dang cold.

Then, the sun comes up and I suppose it could fry anything under glass. Still, these are things that could be dealt with by technology.

I wouldn't grow basil but the environment could be allowed to drop to near freezing during those long nights. That should allow them to be semi-dormant as the plants wait for those long days!

This will probably humor Marshall. As a kid, I thought that I might be a part of a future space program to grow plants on Mars. My idea was that they would be outdoors on Mars and subject to a hostile atmosphere. So, I set up a little experiment to see if plants could grow in a terrarium with acetone vapors. Yeah, right. Why not just rip 'em outta the ground and get it over with. Somebody should have gotten that can of paint brush cleaner away from me !

If I'd been more clever I would have figured out a way to simply draw off a lot of air from the terrarium and see if they could survive in really thin air.

Steve