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China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout

bbc.com

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Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout

#31

Post by adrianN »

wklauss wrote: post #15
worldsayshi wrote: post #2

To 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.…

> You'd need extremely small scale factories that can build everything needed for a modern civilization. It's not as much as you'd think, specially if you can survive on the first couple of decades with regular shipments from earth, mostly for very advanced materials and electronics. A lot of manufacturing capacity in our society is redundant and focused on non-essential items. In addition, some manufacturing process…

I think you underestimate how complicated even simple machines are. Making lubricated ball bearings for example requires high quality steel, precision manufacturing and chemistry that is not trivial if you don't have access to oil.

Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout

#32

Post by lawlessone »

richardknop wrote: post #18
worldsayshi wrote: post #6

Earlier 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?

Desalination is expensive but i think it might be cheaper than moon water.

Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout

#33

Post by adrianN »

k9s9 wrote: post #19
worldsayshi wrote: post #2

To 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.

Replicators are fictional technology that is either straight impossible to build or requires ludicrous amounts of energy.

Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout

#34

Post by gaius »

worldsayshi wrote: post #6
simion314 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why should you have a 100% complete industry, a colony can trade with Earth like countries trade with each other, a colony could trade some rare resources and buy high tech stuff. The main obstacle a colony will have is the initial buildings/bunker with all the life support and safety tech, plus extra redundancy and a backup plan if something bad happens there or on Earth . If the colony would manage to generate…

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?

He3 would be a very profitable export for the moon if we ever develop commercial fusion power on Earth

Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout

#35

Post by SuperGent »

Gustomaximus wrote: post #24

Hasn'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.

I assume it's because its the first plant grown 'on' the moon.

Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout

#36

Post by nyc111 »

duchenne wrote: post #30
nyc111 wrote: post #21

> 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.

Still, it would have been interesting to see what happens to the seed on the surface of the moon. Maybe a cactus used to desert sun could adapt to the harsh conditions on the moon.

Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout

#37

Post by slfnflctd »

alex_duf wrote: post #28
cafebabbe wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm with you on this one. Along the way on the amazing expansion into space, we'll rediscover the critical importance of maximizing efficiency in meeting our basic needs. It would serve us well to get everyone associating that level of efficiency with our greatest feats of technological progress.

Also, what better way to get kids on board from a young age? "Susie, if you really want to be an astronaut, you must learn to manage your downstream recycling better!"

Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout

#38

Post by mnw21cam »

rusk wrote: post #20
cperciva wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want gravity, you use centrifuges. Not really a problem.

is this kind of simulated gravity sufficient for the convection processes described?

I think Einstein might have something to say about that one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivalence_principle

Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout

#39

Post by [deleted] »

nyc111 wrote: post #36
duchenne wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Still, it would have been interesting to see what happens to the seed on the surface of the moon. Maybe a cactus used to desert sun could adapt to the harsh conditions on the moon.

[deleted]

Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout

#40

Post by kevmo »

It is incredibly disappointing to me that the USA didn't do this decades ago. The USA basically won the space race... then decided to chill out for 50 years. I understand that perhaps we did not want to continue to fund NASA at such a high rate, but NASA budgets still could have focused on this.

Space is the next frontier of humanity's existence. A moon base is a logical, achievable next step in man's space exploration. The technology developed and lessons learned would have broad implications far beyond simply "We have a base on the moon."

Newt Gingrich talked about this idea in his 2012 campaign for president. Despite being a fountain of bad ideas in general, the press seized upon this particular issue as a primary source for mockery of Newt.

This is not to belittle any of the other work NASA has done, much of which is also extremely important. Space research is not a zero-sum game. But a moon base is a concrete, achievable (and still awe-inspiring!) goal that both the scientific and political classes could coalesce around. I hope to see it during my lifetime.

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