> The plants are in a sealed container on board the lander.
For a moment I thought they were in the open... Since they are enclosed is there a reason why they should not sprout? The gravity is less but that should not make a difference.
China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout
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Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout
#22To me it seems that the greatest obstacle to space colonization would be maintenance and production of materials and technology needed to sustain and expand the colony. Seems like the last step for truly becoming self sustaining. You'd need extremely small scale factories that can build everything needed for a modern civilization. I wonder what that would take. What the smallest amount of shipments and time would be.…
Replicators. Feels like no one watches Star Trek anymore. Those writers had more time to think about this stuff than most science labs and engineering teams imho.
>Those writers had more time to think about this stuff than most science labs and engineering teams imho.
No, they didn't. They came up with transporters to save money not having effects shots of ships taking off and landing, and replicators are basically the same, a prop meant to save a bit of money while looking "futuristic". Replicators and transporters violate physics (thermodynamics, the uncertainty principle, E=MC^2) and cannot exist as depicted in Star Trek. They spent zero time working out the science because they're television writers, not scientists.
The best you could do in the real world is 3D printers and fabbers. But directly converting energy into complex physical structures in a way that isn't insanely less efficient than physical manufacturing or agriculture? No.
Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, becoming 100% self sufficient wouldn't be a reasonable short term goal but I can't imagine there being any product worth trading in the long term over such distance and given such cost for logistics?
Water possibly could be of great value in the future? Moon has plenty of drinking water. Maybe gold, not sure if there’s gold on the Moon?
What happened here on earth in your imagined scenario where it's worth importing water from the moon? (and how did we survive that long enough for a market to develop?)
Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout
#24Hasn't plant growth been happening for a few years in space? Like the salad they grew and ate in ISS.
Is this such big news because it's an ongoing step in living in space or am I missing something.
Not trying to take away from the achievement but just curious why this is such a big story. I'd thought there would be more news focus on the dark side of the moon updates or astronomy potential of being there type thing.
Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
We're not even self-sustaining on Earth .
We also have significantly more people on Earth though. If anything, more planets makes us more self sustainable in the future.
Not likely; the population will grow, becoming interplanetary just means we'll have more places to grow. It won't move the problem, not unless there's more emigration than population growth, and you can already see how that works on earth.
Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
We're not even self-sustaining on Earth .
Fair point. Perhaps forcing us to be on Mars can teach us something about sustainability here on earth. Here's hoping.
We already have sustainability on Earth; it's just that it's expensive. There's no new science or knowledge required, just a lot more investment.
But, profit margins.
Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout
#27> The plants are in a sealed container on board the lander. For a moment I thought they were in the open... Since they are enclosed is there a reason why they should not sprout? The gravity is less but that should not make a difference.
> The gravity is less but that should not make a difference.
That's the theory, indeed, and this experiment proves it - science!
Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout
#28To me it seems that the greatest obstacle to space colonization would be maintenance and production of materials and technology needed to sustain and expand the colony. Seems like the last step for truly becoming self sustaining. You'd need extremely small scale factories that can build everything needed for a modern civilization. I wonder what that would take. What the smallest amount of shipments and time would be.…
We're not even self-sustaining on Earth .
That's one of my arguments for space colonisation.
In the process of colonising other bodies and planets we'll learn how to be more sustainable here. In other words we would use the promise of new resources and exciting new worlds to learn how to avoid destructing our own.
Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout
#29> The plants are in a sealed container on board the lander. For a moment I thought they were in the open... Since they are enclosed is there a reason why they should not sprout? The gravity is less but that should not make a difference.
Interestingly, low gravity changes the way plants express their genes ...
Organ-specific remodeling of the Arabidopsis transcriptome in response to spaceflight
https://bmcplantbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471...
Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout
#30> The plants are in a sealed container on board the lander. For a moment I thought they were in the open... Since they are enclosed is there a reason why they should not sprout? The gravity is less but that should not make a difference.
The temperature might be an issue. The moon surface 106°C during the day, -183°C during the night.
Also, the sun is brighter in space than an Earth under the atmosphere.
The long days and nights lasting 12 Earth days each might also be problematic.