Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 164 posts

Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout

#81

Post by bayesian_horse »

setquk wrote: post #47
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.…

And that pesky radiation slowly killing you.

Many concepts for permanent settlements on Mars or the moon envision tunneling under the surface to achieve radiation shielding.

Of course it would help to develop better treatments for radiation exposure.

Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout

#82

Post by bayesian_horse »

Ivoirians wrote: post #48
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.

What I heard is that we have data on plant growth on Earth (1G) and on the ISS (0G), but not at reduced gravity like on the Moon (.17G).

It would be easier to produce the .17G on the ISS (with a centrifuge) than putting these seeds on the moon.

Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout

#83

Post by bayesian_horse »

kamaal wrote: post #76
bayesian_horse wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know, Humans need lots of gravity to develop, so any settlement could not reproduce, at least until means to counteract the effects of microgravity are discovered.

You spin your O'Neill cylinders, that's how you get gravity.

O'Neill cylinders don't work on the moon.

Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout

#84

Post by airstrike »

kamaal wrote: post #76
bayesian_horse wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know, Humans need lots of gravity to develop, so any settlement could not reproduce, at least until means to counteract the effects of microgravity are discovered.

You spin your O'Neill cylinders, that's how you get gravity.

Easier said than done

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EHKQIC5p8MU

Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout

#85

Post by pavel_lishin »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #83
kamaal wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You spin your O'Neill cylinders, that's how you get gravity.

O'Neill cylinders don't work on the moon.

"Aw, Mom, why can't we go live on the moon with Dad?"

"Now, Billy, you know your bones and brain need at least .85G to develop properly. You can go live with Dad when you turn 16."

Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout

#86

Post by kamaal »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #83
kamaal wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You spin your O'Neill cylinders, that's how you get gravity.

O'Neill cylinders don't work on the moon.

At this point in time, any mass settlement in space won't involve going down another gravity well.

Pulling stuff out of a gravity well is enough work as it is. Mostly you will have people living and working in neighborhoods, in space, just like you have cities and lot of empty unused land between them on earth.

Like space cities. Then cluster of space cities, then may be a region full of such clusters etc.

Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout

#87

Post by TremendousJudge »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #73
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…

As far as I know, Humans need lots of gravity to develop, so any settlement could not reproduce, at least until means to counteract the effects of microgravity are discovered.

>Humans need lots of gravity to develop

I don't think reproduction of vertebrates has ever been tried in space. Definitely not humans. It simply isn't known how growing up in moon gravity or no gravity at all affects people. They most likely would never be able to visit the Earth, but maybe they can live healthy lives regardless. Or maybe it's impossible and the fetus dies in the womb. It simply isn't known.

Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout

#88

Post by Symmetry »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #68

It doesn't seem like such a big deal to me. If you can grow plants in pressurized compartments in micro-gravity it should work on the moon, also. It would have been another thing if they used parts of moon soil and the like. And this wasn't the first time biological material has grown on the moon. The American astronauts brought plenty of growing biological material with them, too.

The issue is that we have an incredible dearth of knowledge about the effects of low gravity compared to either normal gravity or microgravity. If the ISS centrifuge had actually flow the situation might be different but when considering settlement of either the Moon or Mars we desperately need more information about how low gravity affects biological systems.

From the Apollo missions we do know that humans can survive for three days on the Moon, but given that humans can survive for months in orbit this isn't a surprise. But what are the effects on animal gestation? On plant growth? As far as I'm aware there weren't any plants on any of the Apollo missions, though I believe they did experiments with lunar regolith on Earth.

Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout

#89

Post by dotancohen »

pluma wrote: post #70
MichaelApproved wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The USA basically won the space race... then decided to chill out for 50 years. The USA military got what it needed under the cover of a civilian space race. The US didn't chill after that. It put even more money into rockets but those were funded through the military for ICBMs.

Sending things to (actual) space is expensive. Drones are a lot cheaper than orbital weapons and easier to justify than WMDs. There's not much profit in sending things beyond Earth orbit as Earth is where all the strategic targets are. So other than satellites there's not much to do in space from a military-industrial point of view.

There is no friction in space, so things can move much faster and stay there longer.

Sending a drone to shitistan at 7.8 KM/second is impossible to do in Earth's atmosphere with today's technology. Likewise for keeping an object airborne for more than a few tens of hours. In space, things can move quickly and stay up there for quite some time.

See also the high Delta-V experimental craft, such as the X-37, which allow an asset to be in space for extended periods of time but also to adjust their orbit for short-notice action (presumably reconnaissance) at a specific location.

Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout

#90

Post by Symmetry »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #73
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…

As far as I know, Humans need lots of gravity to develop, so any settlement could not reproduce, at least until means to counteract the effects of microgravity are discovered.

Humans certainly need some gravity but whether lunar 1/8 g or martian 2/5 g is enough is something we have no experimental data on.
Post reply on HN