Growing Plants In Lunar Gravity 111
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."
My brain must be going stupid (Score:5, Funny)
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Yeah, I read it like that too. Course I kind of expect Google to sponsor growing a small moon.
Obligatory: "That's no small moon."
Re:My brain must be going stupid (Score:4, Funny)
Obligatory: "That's no small moon."
"It's a data center."
Re:My brain must be going stupid (Score:4, Funny)
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I think it's time we all went too bed, I had to read your post 3 times before I realized what you were talkign about.
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I read it as "Growing Plants in Lunar Gravy."
Hmmm . . . gravy.
I guess that's what I get for reading Slashdot before breakfast.
"Mom! Can we have plants in lunar gravy for breakfast?"
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Prepare to be disappointed (Score:1, Troll)
Prepare to be disappointed, all ye lunar colonist fans.
Your country is bankrupt. Your government is spending multi-TRILLION dollars to bail-out the rich from their stupidity. You have permanent endless expensive wars in distant and inconsequential lands. You depend on indifferent foreign governments to buy your government bonds that finance the huge debt that previous administrations have incurred.
It's not going to far in the future before the world pulls the plug on America.
When that happens the
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Wow (Score:2, Insightful)
Plants grow in microgravity. (Score:2, Informative)
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From TFA:
I'd be curious to see what kind of different plant structures emerge.
Re:Plants grow in microgravity. (Score:5, Interesting)
It does appear there have been some preliminary studies done. Including growing Arabidopsis thaliana [wikipedia.org] on the ISS. And rice [nih.gov] 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.
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Imagine picking it up when it was rotten.
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The thing is, it wouldn't be hard to do the experiment at almost any gee level they wanted, using a centrifuge on the space station (well, two counter-rotating centrifuges to minimize angular momentum effects on the station). Of course for greater than one gee we can do the same thing on Earth.
Re:Plants grow in microgravity. (Score:5, Insightful)
Thus any differences between earth grav and 1/6 earth grav are likely to be negligible. Dumbest experiment ever.
Famous last words...
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Prove it.
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Where have you been for the last decade.
There is an International Space Station orbiting the earth. You might have heard of this when you weren't trolling here on SlashDot.
If not, or you have been off-planet for the last many years, here is a link for you:
http://quest.nasa.gov/events/cotf/webquest/index.html [nasa.gov]
Re:Plants grow in microgravity. (Score:5, Funny)
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 . . .
Re:Plants grow in microgravity. (Score:5, Funny)
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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Bio power source. (Score:3, Funny)
With that diet, I'd be more worried about the effects of methane buildup on the lunar habs..
I think You instantly solved the problem of having a source of bio renewable fuel for the colonists...
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Mustard seeds.. Is that close to mustard gas that was used in WWI ?
I thought weapons were banned from space:)
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We can make educated guesses, but we are almost guaranteed to have surprises.
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and until we are out there - all our theories and extrapolations are only "educated guesses" as you said.
who really knows how wrong we could be. that is what really fascinates me.
Paragon Firsts (Score:5, Interesting)
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...
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What about... (Score:2)
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?
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Normally if you held your head over a desk and jumped into the air gravity would would make you crack your head on the desk when you came down. Now, if instead of jumping up you just thrust your head straight down to the desk your head would be in zero gravity and gravity wouldn't cause you to crack your head on the desk.
I for one am interested to see how this plays out, be sure to let us know if you try it.
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Normally if you held your head over a desk and jumped into the air gravity would would make you crack your head on the desk when you came down. Now, if instead of jumping up you just thrust your head straight down to the desk your head would be in zero gravity and gravity wouldn't cause you to crack your head on the desk.
I for one am interested to see how this plays out, be sure to let us know if you try it. :)
You owe me a new keyboard. This one is now full of blood. Also, after I visit the emergency department and the dentist (I lost 5 teeth doing your 'experiment') I might send you the bill. Your experiments should come with a safety warning. :/
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Re:What about... (Score:5, Informative)
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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Wouldn't the average still be exactly 1 G? Well, maybe not if one were to spinn the centrifuge at different speeds in different parts of the circulation but it still seems stupid.
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Wouldn't the average still be exactly 1 G? Well, maybe not if one were to spinn the centrifuge at different speeds in different parts of the circulation but it still seems stupid.
Read "Neutron Star", Larry Niven. [wikipedia.org]
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Unless somehow you can spin it so the force vector (Which always points out from the centre of the centrifuge) is always pointing against earths gravity. You'll need a mighty big centrifuge methinks.
Well, you don't have to build the whole centrifuge, just part of it. We call it the International Space Station, whose centrifugal force (I know, I know) balances Earth's gravity perfectly. Ditto for everything else in Earth orbit.
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Although commonly measured in g's. You should probably point out that it doesn't increase gravity. Pedantic, I know.
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"No. A centrifuge can only add to gravity." Although commonly measured in g's. You should probably point out that it doesn't increase gravity. Pedantic, I know.
Saying add to gravity is not the same as saying add gravity.
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This is true. My apologies. I was going to debunk myself soon after posting but thought I would leave it as is and see if I could get away with it...........bugger.
Re:What about... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:What about... (Score:4, Informative)
That of course assumes the extrapolation is meaningful, but it might give a rough indication of what to expect with very little expenditure.
That's been done I bet, but you still need to run the experiment to check whether that extrapolation really is meaningful. There isn't really any substitute, because the fundamental problem with all models (and theories and extrapolations) is that they leave out details, and if you push the model far out of where it was designed for you can get other effects dominating.
For example, you can extrapolate gravitation down to the nanometer scale, but that doesn't mean that it lets you fully understand the behavior of matter in that domain. Electrostatic effects tend to rule at that level instead, yet they're not part of any (sane) model of gravitation that I've heard of. Overall, this just tells you to beware of taking models too far.
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YES NO ?
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Rapid growth (Score:3, Interesting)
I would think that plants would grow faster with little to no gravity.
Re:Rapid growth (Score:5, Informative)
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...)
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Without the leaves the fruit could be sucked into a vaccuum or sorts because there would be no need for the Co2 for the leaves.
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Potatoes, perhaps?
The leaves are just solar panels, after all.
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Why? (Score:4, Interesting)
The splitting of the cells, the growing of said cells, keeping the cells supplied with nutrients, that is what limits the growth of a plant. Not silly gravity. Gravity has an effect (perhaps) on the shape of the plant. I could imagine that with less gravity a tree would be more upright, its branches not bending down by their own weight. There might be a reduction in the cost to pump the sap around although you got to wonder if gravity is not actually used in this process.
But hey, smarter people then me and you have tried thinking about this, didn't come up with a clear answer so they decided to do an experiment. Soon we will know or have another hole in the moon.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Funny)
Speak for yourself, I just don't have access to a lab and all of those cool gadgets. :)
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Re:Why? (Score:4, Interesting)
Growing is easy (Score:1, Insightful)
The hard part is keeping them from frying in direct sunlight.
Payola /. style (Score:1)
Lunar sunshine and lunar soil (Score:3, Interesting)
Not directly of course! But what kind of soil treatment, additives and sunshine/radiation filtering would have to be done to be able to grow plants on a moon based greenhouse.
The question is. How much of what the moon offers can we use to grow plants there, and what adaptations must be done both to lunar based greenhouse and plants to use as much of moon resources as possible?
Sunshine during the day doesnt seem to be a problem in the moon
But those cold long nights
What about a near polar location with eternal sunlight? For example along the rim of the crater Peary
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That filter already exists. Solar cells work fine on the moon. That means you can use it to recharge batteries, and use those batteries to power lamps suitable for growing plants. It's a clumsy way, but doable.
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Maybe instead of using solar cells to power a lightning system a better idea would be to use light collectors and then conduct the light through optical fibers to the greenhouse where plants grow.
Re:Lunar sunshine and lunar soil (Score:5, Informative)
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."
Re:Lunar sunshine and lunar soil (Score:4, Interesting)
I was wondering about that myself.
I also would think the fine dust that is present in large amounts would cause something similar to 'root rot' due to lack of air space between the soil granules/particles.
Once that fine dust becomes wet, it will pack tightly. I think this could pose a significant problem under low gravity conditions.
We may have to also rethink some of our 'dirt working' techniques. Most of our soil processing and our 'earth-moving' equipment/machinery utilizes both gravity and kinetic effects. Low gravity will have an effect here.
Having lived on a farm, and operated front-end loaders and dozers, I do have a little practical experience with both growing plants and 'dirt work'.
But, botany and geology are not my fields, so I may be just chasing my tail here.
Arabidopsis (Score:1)
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They should make it a fern instead... (Score:3, Funny)
... and then release the spores!
Of course they can! (Score:2)
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But then what would I know?:)
Mycroft
New source of funds for NASA (Score:1)
Time for... (Score:1)
Sealed fate in a carboy (Score:5, Interesting)
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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0th: Enter the Dragon?
the most bothersome part of this is the ISS (Score:3, Informative)
Moon Dirt (Score:2)
I'd like to see a variation on this experiment that doesn't plant in Earth dirt shipped to the Moon, but rather plants in Moon dust taken from the Moon, and compares to that grown in Earth dirt there. Further research might show that mulching with Moon dust could multiple the dirt stocks without shipping so much between gravity wells. If we could ship just seeds (and probably some water), Moon farming could be a lot more cost effective.
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I was just about to post this. I agree that we should be testing whether plants will grow in moon dirt.
I think though the lack of organics in moon dirt will ultimately be the fail.
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Back in Apollo days they did this. Actually as I recall they didn't try growing them in pure Lunar soil (that would require too much of a scarce commodity) but in a mix of Lunar soil and sterile Earth soil. The initial objective was to make sure that Lunar soil (and any possible unknown organisms in it) wouldn't have any adverse effect on Earth plants -- but they discovered that the plants actually grew better. Turns out Lunar soil is rich in (inorganic) nutrients just as volcanic soils are.
The Moon is l
Upside down? (Score:2)
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Spaced Out, Dood! (Score:1)
Zero-gravity ? (Score:1)
It came back from Outer Space (Score:1)
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SPACE BUDS!