Could there be flowers on the moon by 2012?
It might sound as implausible and unlikely as polka dot roses, but a team of scientists in the United States are convinced they can grow the first flowers on the moon by 2012.
Paragon Space Development, a company based in Tucson, Arizona, has partnered with private lunar lander developers Odyssey Moon and aims to have the first moon-based seedlings sprouting in time for the London Olympics.
The firm is pinning its hopes on a miniature pressurised greenhouse, which will sit on the lunar surface soaking up rays from the sun and providing the plants with the water and soil they will need to flourish. In effect, the greenhouse will be a tiny flower space suit, ensuring the plant has enough carbon dioxide to breathe whilst disposing of waste oxygen.
Cultivating off-planet life is seen as an important step towards future permanent colonies in space or on other planets; it is envisaged that one day these colonies will be self-sustainable.
Paragon Space Development's hi-tech greenhouse
The team behind Paragon already have considerable experise in the area, with two of their lead engineers, Taber MacCallum and Jane Poynter, having worked on the Biosphere 2 project – an artificially-enclosed eco system similar to the United Kingdom’s Eden Project.
Such are the difficulties associated with growing plants in lunar conditions (not only is there no atmosphere or soil, there are also wild extremes of temperature to contend with) that choosing the right plant was vital. Eventually the team settled on the Brassica; the plant’s 14 day growth cycle coincides perfectly with the lunar day, which lasts 14 Earth days, meaning it could grow to maturity and even re-seed.
The team’s target of having a plant on the moon in just two years might seem ambitious but there is a strong incentive – the Google Lunar X Prize will award $20m to the first private organisation to successfully land a robot on the surface of the moon, dropping to $15m by 2014. The race to plant a garden on the moon is on.
