YOUNG ASTRONAUTS ARE YOU UP FOR A CHALLENGE?
A HIGH-POWERED TELESCOPE IS WAITING JUST FOR YOU.!!
Practicing agriculture on moon for their interplanetary self-sufficient space exploration.
Growing plants on moon with Lunar farming
When we think of space exploration, farming and agriculture are not often the first thing that comes to mind. Although they have been in a common place for human civilisation for millennia, these activities are fast becoming an integral part of research for enabling space exploration. Currently, the only human outpost in space is the international space station (ISS), which is supplied with air, food and water from earth.
An astronaut needs approximately 1 kg of oxygen, 1 kg of dehydrated food and 3 litres of water per day. Providing these supplies for all astronauts on board the ISS is costly and impractical for long space missions. If humanity dreams of colonizing cosmos, plants will have to be grown in flight- as a food source for a new planetary civilization.
Challenges
One of the first challenges for growing plants on Moon is the lack of water and nutrients. Water is not readily available in rivers and ocean as it is on earth, and lunar soil do not contain the nutrients necessary for plantation on moon. Astronauts suggest using a hydroponic system to overcome this challenge: where plants are grown in water based, nutrient-rich solution without the need for soil. Water could potentially be sourced from surface ice near the Moon’s north and south poles, which under certain conditions could be converted to liquid water.
Another challenge is the Moon’s day night cycle.
1 day on moon = 4 weeks on Earth
- Plants need to adapt with 2 weeks of daylight and 2 weeks of darkness.
- Controlling light and temperature is a major challenge because of extreme temperature variations.
- Also, there is virtually no atmosphere on the Moon so plants would need to be kept in a pressurised container fill with gases. Without an atmosphere for protection, the container would also help safeguard plants from space radiation. To be sustainable, the container should have system for recycling gases and water.
Your project idea should answer these following questions
- Choose your top 3 plants to grow on MOON out of the given below: rice, potato, basil, tomato, carrot, broccoli, cabbage, turnips, sweet potato & explain why? (TIP: Watch the movie Martian to understand how plants can be grown on a different planet)
- Which factors are important while choosing the space plant for eg: they should require less water to grow, same way explain other factors to keep in mind while selecting MOON plants?
- Do you think that plants can grow on the Moon? Why?
- Imagine if you travel to moon, how would you grow your first plant?
Rules & submission for the applications
- Age for applicants should be between 8 to 12 years.
- Help of parents/guardian is allowed.
- Applicants need to send a video explaining his/her idea minimum length 3 to 4 minutes.
- Applicants need to send a written paragraph explaining his/her idea in 200 to 250 words with proper diagram of growing food on moon.
- Applicants need to send their full name along with exact age, parents name and parent contact detail while submitting your idea.
- All this need to be send on email id: [email protected]
- For any additional Inquiry/guidance & registration process contact: +91 90335 94467