A lunar bouquet of flowers could greet astronauts who next
set foot on the moon.
Odyssey Moon, a team competing for a $30 million purse in
the Google
Lunar X Prize contest, officially joined forces with another private space
firm Friday to deliver the first greenhouse to the moon as part the "Lunar
Oasis" project.
"Imagine
a bright flower on a plant in a crystal clear growth chamber on the surface
of the Moon, with the full Earth rising above the Moonscape behind it; these
are the ideas that got me interested in space," said Jane Poynter, president
and founder of Paragon Space Development Corporation.
The Paragon-developed greenhouse would become part of
Odyssey Moon's quest to win the Google Lunar X Prize. That $30 million race requires
private teams to land a robot on the moon and complete several tasks, including
traveling 1,640 feet (500 m) and sending high definition images back to Earth.
Paragon previously bred the first
animals through complete life cycles in space, and grew the first aquatic plant
in space. The Tucson-based firm is also a manufacturer of components for NASA's
Orion spacecraft that will return
astronauts to the moon.
"Plants have been grown in essentially zero gravity and
of course in Earth gravity, but never in fractions of gravity," said
Volker Kern, Paragon's director of NASA Human Spaceflight Programs.
Kern previously conducted plant growth experiments on the
space shuttle and hopes the new Lunar Oasis project will help understand how a
lunar environment's one-sixth gravity affects plant growth.
A NASA Ames planetary scientist, Chris McKay, has also
signed on to provide support for the Lunar Oasis science team.
"The first plant to grow from seed and complete its
life cycle on another world will be a significant step in the expansion of life
beyond the Earth," McKay noted. "The sooner we do it the better."
Paragon itself grew out of the Biosphere 2 project, which Poynter
participated in along with future husband and Paragon CEO Taber MacCallum. The
couple spent two years living with six other people in a 3.2-acre greenhouse
structure in Oracle, Arizona — the largest closed system ever built.
Any lunar greenhouse would have to remain just as tightly
sealed, given the inhospitable environment on the moon. But a successful
delivery might provide a boost for Odyssey Moon, even if the space firm does
not capture the Google Lunar X Prize and beat
out other teams in the race to the moon.
"We are thrilled to have Paragon join the team with
their expertise in thermal and biological systems," said Robert Richards, Odyssey
Moon founder and CEO. "I am incredibly inspired by our hope to grow the
first plant
on another world."
advertisement
