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Keith Cowing Thinks NASA Will Grow Plants on the Moon
Pat Flannery wrote:
Pat Flannery wrote: The ratings have dropped severely as the years go on, and even that rumored "Iran: WW III" spin-off series doesn't look like it's got the boffo biz potential of WW II. Already getting bad reviews pre-production: http://www.mytelus.com/ncp_news/arti...icleID=2779962 "He didn't mean it! For God's sake, just because he said it, doesn't mean he _meant_ it!" :-) Assuming humanity actually survives this administration, I've got to read a really big book about it, tracing its history week-by-week, with photos of all the key screw-ups...it's going to run hundreds of pages, easy. Just think, eventually there will be mini-series and action movies! |
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Keith Cowing Thinks NASA Will Grow Plants on the Moon
On Oct 17, 6:43 pm, robert casey wrote:
Technically it's still half day and half night, irrespective of the length of the day, and the driving technology is energy storage for lighting. However, I think they were relying on the polar crater thing. I hate to have to build a storage system that can run lights bright enough to grow plants. It takes a lot of light to drive photosynthesis, much more than that needed for human color eyesight. Thus the requirement that the selected farm plants not mind the long days and nights. Maybe something from the Arctic regions, though I can't think of anything up there that anyone eats. Artificial illumination is not a problem, not in the least bit. Of something orbiting within the moon's L1 is nearly always getting solar illuminated, and even earthshine is offering an impressive amount of those secondary/recoil photons. - Brad Guth - |
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Keith Cowing Thinks NASA Will Grow Plants on the Moon
On Oct 17, 6:43 pm, robert casey wrote:
Technically it's still half day and half night, irrespective of the length of the day, and the driving technology is energy storage for lighting. However, I think they were relying on the polar crater thing. I hate to have to build a storage system that can run lights bright enough to grow plants. It takes a lot of light to drive photosynthesis, much more than that needed for human color eyesight. Thus the requirement that the selected farm plants not mind the long days and nights. Maybe something from the Arctic regions, though I can't think of anything up there that anyone eats. Artificial illumination for accommodating whatever greenhouse plants is not a problem, not in the least bit. Of something orbiting within the moon's L1 is nearly always getting itself rather nicely solar illuminated, and even earthshine is offering an impressive amount of those secondary/recoil photons. If you can't figure out how to sufficiently illuminate whatever while in lunar nighttime, then you should go right back to bed and stay there. - Brad Guth - |
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Keith Cowing Thinks NASA Will Grow Plants on the Moon
On Oct 17, 8:07 pm, Joe Strout wrote:
In article , robert casey wrote: Technically it's still half day and half night, irrespective of the length of the day, and the driving technology is energy storage for lighting. However, I think they were relying on the polar crater thing. I hate to have to build a storage system that can run lights bright enough to grow plants. We'll get somebody else, then. Seriously though, there are a lot of ways to skin that cat, and it's something we're going to need to solve sooner or later anyway. Basically you can divide them into two categories: storage, and continuous production. Under storage we have lots of options, ranging from batteries to flywheels to fuel cells. Under continuous production there are nuclear reactors, beamed power, and rotating solar towers positioned on some peak of eternal light. It takes a lot of light to drive photosynthesis, much more than that needed for human color eyesight. Thus the requirement that the selected farm plants not mind the long days and nights. Maybe something from the Arctic regions, though I can't think of anything up there that anyone eats. That's not a requirement, that's a design decision you've made. Not one I would agree with, myself. Given the cost of these adventures, and the shortness of the LEO day, it would be a no brainer to get this stuff going on the ISS, particularly since we have very little experience with 0 g plant growing techniques. The Moon does have some gravity, about 1/6 of Earth's. Probably enough for growing plants to find the "up" and "down" directions. Yes, but the quote you quoted is talking about LEO, not the Moon. The problem I have with all this is the hypocrisy - they haven't even put much effort into the ground based simulations, the hydroponic earth homes and the small scale closed ecological life support system tests. I wouldn't expect that NASA would have lunar farms grow all the food for the astronauts, at least in the beginning. Most of the food would be the same stuff they eat on the ISS or shuttle, and the farm plants provide a little supplementary fresh veggies to add to the dinner. Maybe, but both you and the guy you're replying to (you failed to attribute the quoted material) seem to be ignorant of the work NASA has done on exactly this. See http://lifesci3.arc.nasa.gov/SpaceSettlement/designer/regen.html for example. There's also some more recent work using LEDs or sulfur microwave lamps whose spectra are tuned to the absorption spectrum of the plants being grown. It's a pretty active area, and yes, real full-up growth chambers have been operated for extended periods on Earth. It's probably easier to plan for 1/6 gravity than it would be for 0 g. True. Should be something a university could throw together to simulate everything except the gravity field. We've been there, done that. There's really no reason to think that plants are going to grow much differently in 1/6 g, at least at first. In the long run, after genetic tinkering or selective breeding, we might develop lunar-adapted strains of crops that spend less energy supporting their weight and put more into the useful parts. But initially, anything that grows well in a growth chamber here should be fine on the Moon. Best, - Joe -- "Polywell" fusion -- an approach to nuclear fusion that might actually work. Learn more and discuss via: http://www.strout.net/info/science/polywell/ robert casey has always been a devoit naysayer. In other words, a lost cause. - Brad Guth - |
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Keith Cowing Thinks NASA Will Grow Plants on the Moon
On Oct 17, 7:57 pm, Joe Strout wrote:
In article , robert casey wrote: Well, growing plants would help reduce CO2 and also provide some veggies for dinner. It's also surprisingly good for morale. Assuming that the selected plants don't mind 15 day periods of daylight and 15 days of darkness. Or that you grow them under artificial lights, of course. Perhaps a good robust crop of hemp/pot (aka BC Bud) would survive. - Brad Guth - |
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