tranced
Joined: Jan 19, 2006
Posts: > 500
From: Santo Domingo, wonDeRland
PM |
Scientists with the European Space Agency (Esa) say the day when flowers bloom on the Moon has come closer.
An Esa-linked team has shown that marigolds can grow in crushed rock very like the lunar surface, with no need for plant food.
Some see growing plants on the Moon as a step towards human habitation.
But the concept is not an official aim of Esa, and one of the agency's senior officials has dismissed the idea as "science fiction".
The new research was presented at the European Geosciences Union (EGU) meeting in Vienna, the largest annual European gathering of scientists studying the Earth, its climate and its neighbours in space.
Bernard Foing, a senior scientist with the European Space Research and Technology Centre (Estec) in the Netherlands, believes growing plants on the Moon would be a useful tool to learn how life adapts to lunar conditions, and as a practical aid to establishing manned bases.
"We would bring a system of water circulation and recovery, which is also the type of system that in any case you want to develop when you are going to manufacture a primitive sort of life support system," he told BBC News.
"So it is also a kind of `technological breadboard' for maintaining a simple life form in an extreme environment."
S O U R C E
i would like to know what plants will be?
|
Posted: 2008-04-18 04:49
jay0726 | 
but it may help to understand how plants adapt and help us plant plants on every planet to make a resourceful journey.. 
