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First green leaf on moon dies as temperatures plummet
The appearance of a single green leaf hinted at a future in which astronauts would grow their own food in space, potentially setting up residence at outposts on the moon or other planets. Now, barely after it had sprouted, the cotton plant onboard China’s lunar rover has died.
The plant relied on sunlight at the moon’s surface, but as night arrived at the lunar far side and temperatures plunged as low as -170C, its short life came to an end.
Prof Xie Gengxin of Chongqing University, who led the design of the experiment, said its short lifespan had been anticipated. “Life in the canister would not survive the lunar night,” Xie said.
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First Green Leaf on Moon Dies as Temperatures Plummet
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serendipity, n.:
The process by which human knowledge is advanced.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 18 2019, @01:43PM (26 children)
Wouldn't it make more sense to grow the plant under artificial lighting (that can be set to a 24h cycle like on Earth), and use solar cells and batteries to power that lighting as well as heating when necessary?
(Score: 0, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 18 2019, @01:52PM (6 children)
since when is logic or reason involved here?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 18 2019, @06:08PM (2 children)
Since it is a goddamned experiment! They expected it to die in the night, either the sprouting was the ultimate goal or they also wanted to gather some data on the death of the plant at night.
To imagine that a large team just forgot about the freezing night temperatures on the moon is more stupid than the "mistake" you assume they made.
(Score: 2) by AssCork on Friday January 18 2019, @06:27PM (1 child)
A team of student interns led by "Do what I say or it's curtains for you" PhD types have been known to make mistakes in the past.
Just popped-out of a tight spot. Came out mostly clean, too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 18 2019, @11:46PM
Not saying it isn't possible, but Occam's Razor points to this being a part of the experiment. Just because something is technically possible doesn't make it likely.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday January 18 2019, @06:31PM (2 children)
Light affects germination. Light on an atmosphereless moon is different than light on the earth.
Does logic and reason lead you to any conclusions about the purpose of this experiment?
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday January 18 2019, @07:11PM (1 child)
We know quite well how to create that sort of light here on Earth, in order to see how plants react on it. Indeed, as Planck spectrum, it is one of the easiest spectra to replicate.
When doing an experiment, you want to change as few parameters as possible. On the moon, you have the unique opportunity to check the parameter setting "strength of gravity = g/6" on your plant growth. You wouldn't want that result spoiled by an additional spectrum of light parameter change.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 19 2019, @05:42PM
That is a common misconception and almost always a waste of limited resources but for the most trivial experiments. Experiment optimization is a much more elaborated process than to brute force your way in.
What you really want is to map the space of the experiment parameters to the results and then find the optimum with the less possible number of test and for that usually you need to change all parameters at once.
There is lot of technical literature for the math inclined about experiment optimization, and even an good introductory MOOC Experimentation for Improvement [coursera.org].
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 18 2019, @01:57PM (6 children)
it's a shame nobody in the entire chinese space agency didn't think about this.
you should have signed off with your name, I'm sure you'd be overwhelmed with job offers.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Friday January 18 2019, @02:49PM (1 child)
So evidently we in the west know about this, will the chinese people know about this?
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 18 2019, @05:51PM
The only way Chinese people will know about that post is if they can read English.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday January 18 2019, @06:36PM (3 children)
It's a shame that so many folks on this site hate/misunderstand science as evidence by this thread. I thought we were supposed to be a bunch of nerds....
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 18 2019, @09:55PM
Some of us, evidently, are racists. ChiComs, doncha know!
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday January 19 2019, @05:19AM
The only science I know is from Trump tweets!
Mmmmmmm, hungry....gonna get me a hamberder.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Saturday January 19 2019, @04:06PM
Oh really now? Care to explain the "science" behind the inclusion of the silk worms in this experiment then? PR stunts masquerading as science are what I don't like. There may well be some legitimate experiments buried beneath it, but still, the way the whole thing is presented is sloppy and anti-science.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Friday January 18 2019, @02:13PM (4 children)
Why set lighting at a 24h cycle like on Earth? Anyone who has set up a REAL grow operation knows that you have the lights on 24/7. Monitoring and redundancy prevent downtime so that your lights have a five nines uptime.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Friday January 18 2019, @03:28PM (1 child)
As I recall, many (even most) plants don't actually do that well under those conditions. Though there is at least one high-profit crop that benefits during some parts of its life cycle.
As one example, many plants such as Mother-in-Laws-Tounge actually respirate at night rather than during the day. Interfere with that cycle, and they'd die fairly quickly.
(Score: 3, Informative) by maxwell demon on Friday January 18 2019, @03:38PM
Of course the nice thing about artificial lighting is that you can give each plant the lighting it likes best. If the plant needs a night, give it a night. If the plant grows best under 24/7 light, give it 24/7 light. And if it prefers different patterns at different development stages, just change the lighting pattern accordingly.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Informative) by AssCork on Friday January 18 2019, @06:29PM (1 child)
Don't know WTF you're growing, but most plants require "shorter days" and a drop in temp to signal them that winter has arrived, and the inverse to trigger a "spring weather" response.
Just popped-out of a tight spot. Came out mostly clean, too.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday January 18 2019, @08:58PM
I never regularly watched, but I have a vague memory of an old 1980's episode of Battlestar Galactica where one child is expressing his skepticism to another child that it would be possible to grow plants without a computer.
Maybe an AI could, by trial and error, learn the optimal light and temperature cycles to maximize growth / profits / food-supply.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday January 18 2019, @03:47PM
I expect the Chinese lunar landers weight budget was far too low
That the ISS grew lettuce in zero gravity did not imply that it was ediibe: it’s well documented that forms of living tissue rely critically on gravity, otherwise human babies would be born as a puddle of goo.
So that lettuce was returned to earth to be tested, but happily was found to be edible.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by NateMich on Friday January 18 2019, @03:57PM (1 child)
Yes, because solar powered robotic missions always bring enormous panels and batteries with them to power a secondary mission objective for 2 weeks at a time.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday January 18 2019, @07:13PM
The whole thing stops operation for two weeks because of the darkness and cold.
There would be no reason to engineer one piece to stay awake and warm, only the CPU gets this luxury, with "awake and warm" being a lot lower than any leaf could survive.
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Friday January 18 2019, @07:28PM
If the intent had been to actually grow something on the moon then yeah, the chamber should have had a light and temp control.
If however the attempt was to make a tasty news bite that sounded cool then why bother adding weight and complexity to the rover? Like the Sputnik 2 [wikipedia.org] was nothing more than a "We got the first dog in SPACE!!!!" PR victory for the USSR (the dog baked to death after a few hours due to the temperature in the capsule becoming too high).
The only thing that has been "proven" with this latest stunt is that a seed can germinate if you put it in some wet medium and don't let it freeze while it is on the Moon. I seem to recall some plants .being raised on Skylab or the ISS a long time ago so it really isn't all that big a deal for science.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 18 2019, @07:40PM (1 child)
The canister DID have life-support, but it was malfunctioning, so the experiment was terminated.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by realDonaldTrump on Saturday January 19 2019, @06:32AM
Because it's Made in China. You order something from China. It takes a long time to come. A hell of a long time. When it comes it only works for a little while. So many times, less than the shipping. And to send it back, they absolutely kill you on the postage for that one. Very cheap for them to send it here. But the return, not so cheap. In fact it's not cheap at all (UNFAIR Treaty). So you throw it away. You "terminate the Experiment" -- if you got smart. Big waste of money!!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday January 19 2019, @12:49AM