a Little time? At the end of text there is a summary.
A bit sour, and quite small. In addition, the shell of the “Micro Tina” is a bit thicker than other varieties. “Otherwise they taste but after a tomato,” says Jens House. And the biologist should know, because he knows the “Micro Tina”. The house situation is working at the German centre for air and space travel (DLR) in Cologne and together with colleagues he has sent, so to speak, just Germany’s highest raised bed on the way.
Together with around 70 other larger and smaller missiles, the German research satellite “Eu:Cropis is on Saturday” on Board “Falcon 9″rocket from California’s Vandenberg to All-started – with exactly twelve seeds of the tomato variety “micro Tina” on Board. In the coming year, they should germinate in around 600 km height and the LED light first, then grow and finally bear fruit.
For the DLR in Bremen-built satellite has a self-contained Ecosystem. To belong to the in addition to the tomatoes, also from micro-organisms populated Filter of lava rock, as well as a liquid container filled with algae and plants.
inexpensive, and tasty supply arguments for the greenhouse at All
The Experiment will help to solve the following Problem at least partially: When people – like US President, Donald Trump for Nasa arranged to fly in a couple of years back to the moon, then later, perhaps to Mars, you need to think very carefully about what to take to get there. For every pound that you have of the earth into space, fails with a transport cost of tens of thousands of dollars to book. Because it would be pretty handy if the spaceman could at least recover a part of their supplies themselves.
potato, for example, wheat and soy. Or just tomatoes.
Since the idea of a greenhouse so in All into the game, and such vegetables grow would have to leave. For astronauts that would not only practical because you would then have to take less food. The fresh produce should simply taste better than the ready-made meals, you need to use the space otherwise.
Test in the Antarctica
In the Film “The Martian” is depends on the nursery in All even have a life. Because of the on the Red planet left behind spaceman Mark Watney grows potatoes in a substrate from Mars, sand, and feces – in order to stretch his extremely tight food stocks.
researchers whose house situation says, the movie he had never seen. ‘ve just never. And in addition, urine was breeding anyway much more useful for the plant as a solid waste. But that’s by the by.
You could say ” Yes ” anyway: The “Martians”, this is only fiction.
on the one Hand.
Because on the other hand, the DLR to try the vegetable breeding under extreme conditions in practice. So far, however, not in All, but at the German research station “Neumayer III” in Antarctica. The crew is there to look forward to in the meantime, several kilograms of fresh produce per week, to grow in a greenhouse without soil, but under artificial light.
DLR staff Onbahis Paul Zabel in Antarctica-greenhouse (file photo)
growth with less gravity can the right?
When the project called “Eden ISS” learning, the researchers, for example, how to light and irrigation system control, in order to get a optimum yield. In the case of the “EU:Cropis” is the size of the harvest, however, is not important, the All-tomato is never eat someone. Rather, the scientists want to find out how plants grow actually, if you at once the gravity of the earth is missing – and if a gardener can boost their growth with fertilizer.
Instead to do this Job for the microorganisms in the satellite. And if that works, you can take advantage of these experiments like “the Eden ISS”.
plants in All – it is not so, that there have been no such experiments. On the International space station, spaceman, for example, the white-flowered herb of arable narrow wall of germs, orange zinnias bloomed and even lettuce grew in weightlessness.
But not all of the Experiments were always smooth. So there was, among other things, problems with waterlogging, in which astronauts had to intervene as a space gardener, in order to save the plants at all.
In the case of the “EU:Cropis” can bring, however, no one may be ailing plants back on track. The is a difference. The other: The tomatoes on Board the satellite are not supposed to grow, in contrast to the experiments on the space station without the effect of gravity, but at much lower levels than on earth. “Plants need only a tenth of earth’s gravity, in order to know where the top and bottom is,” says House.
rotation around the own axis
Gravitation is not manufactured, but you can simulate it. On this principle, many designs are based on past space visionaries for the stations to the lives of All. People like Wernher von Braun dreamed of giant, rotating wheels, in which thousands of people should live. In the interior of such a wheel, centrifugal forces occur, which have effects of gravity.
Anyone who has already been pressed once on a merry-go-round in his seat, knows the principle and the “Eu:Cropis” uses it, as the first satellite ever. For lunar conditions (0.16 times earth’s gravity) it rotates 20 times per Minute around its own axis, in the first half of the year, after the Start to go that way. Then is simulated once as long as the Mars (0.38 times earth’s gravity), in this time, the flying greenhouse 32 rotates times every Minute. For the Rotation, it uses the magnetic field of the earth, of which he repels with the help of an electric coil.
For the moon-experiment is only supplied to one half of the seed with water and fertilizer, for the Mars attempt, then later the other. But how do water and fertilizer come from?
Simulated urine
The main ingredient is urine, however, not true, but from a previously stirred mixture. No one is on Board the satellite, could provide a pee-pee. And your own urine is not wanted to use the researchers involved – because in there, for example, residues of Medications might be that would affect the Experiment.
The simulated urine provides at least the water used to Irrigate the plants – and later, after it is evaporated, can be recovered again. But it also contains urea, which decomposes in a further step to ammonia. And, in turn, is transformed, in a Filter made of lava stones of countless on the surface living microbes first into nitrite and later into nitrate – and ready for plant-usable fertilizer.
“The Biofilter helps us, the earth is to imitate,” says House. In the event that the Filter does not work, however, the researchers installed a Backup. This consists of a solution of small single-celled, so-called green algae. Cannot practically produce only oxygen at the Start of the experiment, but also the System in the case of a problem of too much ammonia free.
What is clear: The flying greenhouse is a start for the breeding of plants in All but a very small. To people would be to feed according to the estimates of researchers, the 100 square meters of cultivation area is required. Per Astronaut.
Summary: In the Interior of the German satellite of the “Eu:Cropis” researchers in the coming months, tomatoes in All breed – under the gravity conditions on the moon and Mars, Lord. The satellite rotates on itself and simulates the force of gravity. The findings should help ensure that astronauts one day be able to grow their own food in space.
