Posted on 12/24/2012 6:57:18 PM PST by BenLurkin
Chinese astronauts are preparing to grow fresh vegetables on Mars and the moon after researchers successfully completed a preliminary test in Beijing, state media reported.
Four kinds of vegetables were grown in an "ecological life support system", a 300 cubic metre cabin which will allow astronauts to develop their own stocks of air, water and food while on space missions, Xinhua news agency said Monday.
The system, which relies on plants and algae, is "expected to be used in extra-terrestrial bases on the moon or Mars", the report said.
Participants in the experiment could "harvest fresh vegetables for meals", Xinhua quoted Deng Yibing, a researcher at Beijing's Chinese Astronaut Research and Training Centre, as saying.
"Chinese astronauts may get fresh vegetables and oxygen supplies by gardening in extra-terrestrial bases in the future," the report said, adding that the experiment was the first of its kind in China.
China has said it will land an exploratory craft on the moon for the first time next year, as part of an ambitious space programme that includes a long-term plan for a manned moon landing.
The Asian superpower has been ramping up its manned space activities as the United States, long the leader in the field, has scaled back some of its programmes, such as retiring its iconic space shuttle fleet.
In its last white paper on space, China said it was working towards landing a man on the moon -- a feat so far only achieved by the United States, most recently in 1972 -- although it did not give a time frame.
China's first astronaut Yang Liwei said last month that Chinese astronauts may start a branch of China's ruling Communist Party in space, state media reported.
(Excerpt) Read more at marsdaily.com ...
That should please the 'Rats
The rats are more communist than the supposed “communists” in China. China may not be a democratic republic but they have become far more capitalist than we are.
how can they build this when we haven’t built it for them to steal yet?
Chinese Communists are well to the right of American Democrats. They at least understand how capitalism works.
Remember how proud we were when Americans walked on the moon? Remember the boost in America’s confidence? The technology spinoffs?
China is doing that.
Our NASA director says that the goal of NASA is now Muslim outreach.
They will succeed in their endeavors because they aren’t burdened with making muslims feel good about their contributions to science and technology.
NASA’s goal is to eliminate the rich through carbon taxes and make sure that Muslims are not discriminated against. The secondary goal is to put a Hip Hop RAP musician into space to create a song full of cuss words and sex.
Imagine that. A Chinese restaurant on the moon.
there are no nutrients in martian soil...you cannot grow produce in a soil which has no nutrients whatsoever.
They’ll have to being their own dogs and cats.
they'll prolly have to bring them with them and after that, it's a closed loop system with EVERYTHING recycled, everything... with minimum replenishment from earth of what finally breaks down is my guess
What does Muslim outreach entail. Is it the giving of the highest of space science technology to Muslim countries? If so, that would be close to giving the keys to the kingdom away. It would also fit in with the Mohammedan attitude that non-Muslims merely exist to be exploited in any which way they can.
Is China still here after the Apocalypse?
“Imagine that. A Chinese restaurant on the Moon
I’ll bet it has great food, but no atmosphere.
Search for his speech, it was on (naturally) a Jazeera, but was widely copied on Youtube.
o let us not forget MICHELLE-MY-BELLE =)
that sounds to me like a window box...your soil, your nutrients, your water and EUREKA plants bloom....brilliant
except you don't recycle your own urine and feces into your window box... 8^)
Recently this country has been growing crops in congress. One party grows fruits, the other vegetables.
Bill Clinton is good with a hoe.
Might be hard to locate a big box home center place on Mars, never mind a lawn and garden department. Would be interesting if anyone ever figured out if terraforming, though. I guess, in theory, the road to terraforming involves being able to control the weather on Earth. Since we can't even predict the weather, let alone control it, I think terraforming is a bit of a pipe dream. If anyone figures out how to control the weather, the military applications alone would be mind-boggling.
I would think the hard radiation sleeting through the garden would result is mostly dead plants....
The American cowboy gave way to the petulant adolescent. "It's the [Fill in the Blank] Studid!" We're becoming a nation of know-it-alls who literally know less than nothing since virtually everything we know is actually wrong. We will still be around for a few more years, progressively neener-neenering ourselves into obsolescence.
Merry Christmas.
They'll still be hungry again an hour later.
Cheers!
...oh, and Merry Christmas!
When my kid was eight, I helped her with an original science project for school.
She attempted to grow cabbages in Lunar simulant soil which was supplied by a kind NASA scientist. After Apollo, vegetables were grown in ACTUAL Lunar soil returned to Earth. For some reason, which I don’t think was ever explained, the vegetables in real Lunar soil grew FASTER than the control vegetables grown in Lunar simulant soil created from Earth samples.
The original part was that we made asteroid simulant soil. We chose to create carbonaceous chondrite soil since that is the most common type of near Earth asteroid.
The cabbages grew just fine in Lunar simulant. However, the asteroid soil had too many hydrocarbons in it. It was like trying to grow vegetables in asphalt.
She got a Blue Ribbon.
Brilliant!
unless shielded as well as the humans, prolly pretty hard on the humans also yielding the same result... yes?
oh yes... the Chin's are on the pipe for sure
Lunar soil probably has jagged edgeswhich would scarify seeds, which encourages them to sprout"faster".
Great, ....so the next Chinese transport will take bees, then they will mutate into Martian Killer Bees and swarm every solar eclipse. Even space will no longer be safe....
(Asparagus will still take 2 years to grow...)
Interesting!
And you thought getting fruit cocktail from China was a novelty.
Coming soon to a Walmart near you - fresh veggies from Mars and Moon...
Not to worry, I am a meat eater and figure cows eat enough grass to cover my veggie needs.....
Green Mars, part of a series of novels some years ago, terraforming over a two hundred year cycle.
The Chinese can do it. They can initiate a chain reaction that can given time start an atmosphere. As far as nutrients there is ways to get around that. Microbes can feed off of almost anything, just need the right ones.
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