NASA to grow vegetables, plants on Moon

Credit: Astrobiotechnology

NASA to grow vegetables, plants on Moon

          NASA is planning to grow plants and vegetables - such as turnip and basil - on the Moon, to understand whether humans can live and work on the Earth's natural satellite, at whom you all have starred at nights. The US space agency will deposit plants, on-board a commercial lunar lander, on the Moon's surface within the next two years, NASA said. NASA to grow vegetables, plants on Moon

          The initiative is being driven by the Lunar Plant Growth Habitat team. They intend to use coffee-can sized containers designed to protect the plants against harsh elements of the climate, and will also provide cameras, sensors, and electronics in order to relay information about how the plants fare back to Earth. 

NASA to grow vegetables, plants on Moon

         NASA's plan is "to develop a very simple sealed growth chamber that can support germination over a five to ten day period in a spacecraft on the Moon." NASA to grow vegetables, plants on Moon

         The containers will attempt to grow turnip, basil and Arabidopsis. 

          NASA's plan is find some answers when this "self-contained habitat," which will have a mass of about one kg and would be payload on a commercial lunar lander, is on Moon. "How can we send plants to the Moon soon?" Hitchhiking. Thanks to Google, there were many potential rides to the Moon in the future and are, with commercial spacecraft companies competing to collect the Google Lunar X-Prize which is now over and unfortunately no team won the 1st prize of $20 million.  NASA to grow vegetables, plants on Moon

         After landing on Moon, water will be added to the seeds in the module - a trigger would release a small reservoir of water wetting filter paper and initiating germination. NASA to grow vegetables, plants on Moon

        Air in the sealed containers would be adequate for more than five days of growth. Their growth will be monitored for five to ten days and compared to Earth based controls. The seedlings would be photographed at intervals. "We would use the natural sunlight on the Moon as the source of illumination for plant germination as a first ISRU (in situ resource utilization)" demonstration. 

NASA to grow vegetables, plants on Moon

       NASA believes the effort will yield returns on two fronts, knowledge about life's chances on the Moon. The information about the plants may help NASA better address the question if humans can live and work on the Moon. Almost 6 years ago, Chinese scientists announced their plans to grow fresh vegetables in extraterrestrial bases on Moon or Mars to provide food and oxygen supplies to astronauts. NASA to grow vegetables, plants on Moon   NASA to grow vegetables, plants on Moon

     Figuring out - how to grow plants on outer places in space is very crucial for our civilization as this would be the basic step to colonize other planets, moons and other celestial bodies. It's cruciality can be understood by the dangers our civilization is surrounded with, such as coming asteroids, comets and pandemics (which we are currently dealing with - COVID 19), global warming and natural disasters are the popular threats identified by humans earlier than any other threats.  NASA to grow vegetables, plants on Moon

    Therefore, we should keep innovating with the new ideas in the field of astrobiology, to keep up the pace with innovation in space technology.  NASA to grow vegetables, plants on Moon   NASA to grow vegetables, plants on Moon

NASA to grow vegetables, plants on Moon  NASA to grow vegetables, plants on Moon  

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NASA to grow vegetables, plants on Moon