4 ms·
It doesn't seem like such a big deal to me. If you can grow plants in pressurized compartments in micro-gravity it should work on the moon, also. It would have
by bayesian_horse 8y ago
It doesn't seem like such a big deal to me. If you can grow plants in pressurized compartments in micro-gravity it should work on the moon, also.
It would have been another thing if they used parts of moon soil and the like.
And this wasn't the first time biological material has grown on the moon. The American astronauts brought plenty of growing biological material with them, too.
- Symmetry 8y agoThe issue is that we have an incredible dearth of knowledge about the effects of low gravity compared to either normal gravity or microgravity. If the ISS centrifuge had actually flow the situation might be different but when considering settlement of either the Moon or Mars we desperately need more information about how low gravity affects biological systems. From the Apollo missions we do know that humans can survive for three days on the Moon, but given that humans can survive for months in orbit this isn't a surprise. But what are the effects on animal gestation? On plant growth? As far as I'm aware there weren't any plants on any of the Apollo missions, though I believe they did experiments with lunar regolith on Earth.
- modzu 8y agowait its not growing in a sample of regolith? i thought that was the point of the experiment (gravity experiments with plants have been done on ISS, no?)
- andygates 8y agoNo, the point is growing in lunar gravity. Things get confused and need training by light in microgravity. We really don't know what they do in lunar g; "it just works" is a great result. Boring but useful.
- anewguy9000 8y agothanks, that makes sense, and experiments with lunar soil could (have?) been done on earth