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China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout
Seeds taken up to the Moon by China's Chang'e-4 mission have sprouted, says China National Space Administration. It marks the first time any biological matter has grown on the Moon, and is being seen as a significant step towards long-term space exploration. [...] Plants have been grown on the International Space Station before but never on the Moon.
[...] The Chinese Moon lander was carrying among its cargo soil containing cotton and potato seeds, yeast and fruit fly eggs. The plants are in a sealed container on board the lander. The crops will try to form a mini biosphere - an artificial, self-sustaining environment.
[...] On Tuesday, Chinese state media said the cotton seeds had now grown buds. The ruling Communist Party's official mouthpiece the People's Daily tweeted an image of the sprouted seed, saying it marked "the completion of humankind's first biological experiment on the Moon".
Fred Watson, Australian Astronomical Observatory's astronomer-at-large, told the BBC the development was "good news". "It suggests that there might not be insurmountable problems for astronauts in future trying to grow their own crops on the moon in a controlled environment."
According to SCMP, a similar biosphere experiment will be conducted on Earth for comparison.
A Chang'e-5 lunar exploration vehicle could be launched by the end of 2019, and would include a 2 kg sample return. At least 3 more Chang'e missions are planned.
Previously: China's Chang'e 4 Spacecraft Lands on the Far Side of the Moon
Chang'e Lander Sends Back Far Side Panorama
(Score: 1, Interesting) by eravnrekaree on Tuesday January 15 2019, @04:03PM (5 children)
Its a pointless experiment. Being able to grow a seed in a jar for a few weeks does not mean or prove anything about the habitability of the moon.
No one is going to be living on the moon. Temperatures vary from 120 C to -170 C. There is no air. There is only trace water. The dust is toxic. It is bathed in toxic radiation that instantly kills anything on the surface unprotected.
People move to Florida because 30 F in a northern city is too cold, and they want to be in a tropical environment. Antartica is a paradise compared to the Moon. Its not like the moon is some paradise that people are struggling to get to. Living there would be an intense, fruitless and futile struggle for survival. It is tottally unsustainable because the moon lacks the resources you would need to survive there. Such ideas in fact threaten the earth since it would require constant supplies from earth that would begin to drain earths resources. In order to do any kind of colonization it would have to be self supporting with no resources needed from earth. Earth is already depleted of resources. Mars and the Moon are basically hellholes, they will never be as good of a place to live as as earth, and we should not damage the best planet we have for nutty ideas, even an attempt to terraform mars would eventually be destroyed due to the lack of magnetosphere.
We should ban any attempt to set up colonies on Mars or the Moon. Its a waste of money and resources, its based on an ignorant and kind of delusional way of thinking that results from too many episodes of Star Trek. It lacks any kind of real practical purpose. And it is naive of the real problems with it. It is not self supporting and sustainable. It would basically have no more value than a tightrope walk, a stunt for the entertainment of some, and would actually have negative value because of the cost and expense that would be drained that could be spent on something more productive to make like better on earth.
People often cite a K-T event, but those are perfectly survivable on earth, much more cheaply and easily we could develop a K-T survival program on earth, which would actually be more cost effective and and have a better chance of success. In fact, the conditions during a K-T impact and impact winter are mild compared to daily conditions on mars or the moon. We could easily set up emergency survival groups on earth stocked with years of supplies, seed banks and so on in remote areas around the planet that would allow civilization to be restarted after the dust settled.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 15 2019, @04:38PM
> we should ban science
Please, go back to your cave.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 15 2019, @07:31PM
At the minimum it will be a great tourist attraction. Ideally the moon would make for a great spaceport and it is the safest location for humanity to develop colony tech.
(Score: 3, Funny) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday January 15 2019, @07:35PM
Kindly fuck off.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by RandomFactor on Wednesday January 16 2019, @12:13AM (1 child)
I understand the disappointment in the plant experiment. If they mixed in some percentage of Lunar soil even, it would have more meaning. We know plants can grow with reduced gravity and weird sunlight schedules already.
One of the Tom Swift Jr. books (written in the 50's and 60's) had Tom launching plants that had been bred to be able to survive in the environment on Venus as I recall. Basically seeding the planet.
Now Venus is a hellhole they just didn't realize back then. But it is still an interesting idea whether or not we could progressively create an extremophile capable of surviving in the soil, reduced atmospheres, high radiation etc. environments of other bodies. Even if we can't, we still might be able to dramatically reduce the necessary effort to grow stuff there.
Heck, if we could just make it so that losing pressure didn't completely kill off the potato crop instantly it would have made things a lot easier for Mark Watney...
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @05:15AM
Hydroponic farming works, which involves plants growing in "nothing", so asking whether or not plants will grow in lunar regolith is simply "is the lunar regolith toxic to plants?". The answer is almost certainly "no, the lunar regolith is not toxic to plants," because the lunar regolith is pretty much just ground up igneous rock. Obviously hydroponic techniques will be required to grow anything as the lunar regolith contains no useful amount of nitrogen (of any sort) which is essential for earthbound plant life.