Comments on: First Experiment Starts in ISS Columbus Module Testing Plant Growth

By: First Experiment Starts in ISS Columbus Module Testing Plant Growth | Name a Star

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 17:52:43 +0000

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By: First Experiment Starts in ISS Columbus Module Testing Plant Growth | Name a Star

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 14:25:16 +0000

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By: Antti o

Antti o — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 10:32:14 +0000

From ESA site: "… contribute to our knowledge of growing crops in the space environment â€“ providing astronauts with nutritional fresh produce during a voyage that could last as long as two years."

I don't know so much about the earlier experiments and their objectives. At least the cosmonauts grew wheat seeds on Mir station, and Spacelab lentil.

By: Kootstar

Kootstar — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 01:35:42 +0000

Studying plant growth in space (on other planets, moons, or in designated spaceship labs) will definitely not be an overnight run. The arabidopsis has been a "lab rat" for plant research here on earth for some time due to its simplistic structure. Once the best and worst of the growth determinations have been found in such a simplistic plant, then the correction or help for any found problems might be easier to deal with in this litle thing. From there further work would be much more predefined for other plants perhaps.
At least, that is my opinion.

By: Wade Walker

Wade Walker — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 23:15:13 +0000

Yes, the seed experiment seems to be repeated very frequently. I hope the ESA Laboratory isn't just doing the same thing that Space Lab did many years ago.

By: ScepticTim

ScepticTim — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 17:04:19 +0000

I assume the difference is summed up in "…comparing two types of arabidopsis seed (one wild and one genetically modified) in gravity conditions from zero to one Earth gravity…"

By: Bob

Bob — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 15:19:13 +0000

This seems to be such a (no pun intended) rudimentary experiment, done over, and over, and over, at the request of every grade school over all these years, just NOW they are looking at root development in space?

What am I missing?
What is different about this experiment?