Posted on 09/24/2018 7:13:36 AM PDT by BenLurkin
An Antarctic greenhouse known as EDEN ISS not only survived the polar night but emerged from it with a harvest for local researchers, thus providing hope that future Mars colonists could also enjoy fresh food during their time on the Red Planet, German Aerospace Center (DLR) officials said in a statement.
Regularly withstanding temperatures below minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 40 degrees Celsius), the greenhouse provided herbs, lettuce and other vegetables to 10 people who were riding out the winter in the remote station, called the Alfred Wegener Institute's Neumayer Station III. It's the first time the greenhouse operated through the winter.
The haul included 170 lbs. (77 kilograms) of lettuce, 112 lbs. (51 kg) of cucumbers, 64 lbs. (29 kg) of tomatoes, 26 lbs. (12 kg) of kohlrabi, 20 lbs. (9 kg) of herbs and 11 lbs. (5 kg) of radishes.
All of the crops were produced in a cultivated area measuring just 140 square feet (13 square meters). However, the peppers and strawberries failed to produce a harvest, likely due to pollination issues, according to the statement.
While Zabel tended to the planets when possible, stormy conditions in Antarctica often prevented him from walking the quarter mile or so (about 400 m) outdoors to the greenhouse. In those cases, a control center in Bremen, Germany, took over for as long as three consecutive days.
When conditions allowed, Zabel could perform urgent repairs, such as fixing a screw that came loose in the thermal system.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
Huh, and all this time I thought he only came here to play baseball........
What I’m seeing isn’t a greenhouse. It’s all artificial light.
Survival at the pole requires people to live in greenhouse conditions.
You must get pissed off quite a lot.
So, how does one run a nuke in outer space? You carry a couple of million lbs of heavy water too? I’m interested in your idea on how to do heat xfer and cooling w/o an atmosphere? I know space is cold, but you still need a transfer mechanism.
I was thinking to do this on Mars, but can’t be a traditional Nuke plant due to the amount of water required. Otherwise, SpaceX’s entire fleet will have to send a 100 flights of just water to get the reactor online. As for nukes in Deep space, this is a problem too as vacuum does not transmit heat very well. They are working on the problems and SpaceX is planning on dropping cargo on Mars in 2020 during the next window.
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