The US space agency contacted four biologists and asked them to conduct experiments in preparation for growing plants for astronauts who will land on Mars
Avi Blizovsky
Direct link to this page: https://www.hayadan.org.il/ncisplants.html
Four researchers from the University of North Carolina were asked by NASA to evaluate how green plants could grow on the Red Planet. The space agency has chosen biologists from the Keenan Institute at North Carolina State University to design an experiment for the International Space Station that will examine how plants adapt to life in space or on another planet.
If humans fly to Mars one day, living plants will be a great aid to the mission, but humans do not yet know how to grow grain or any other plant there. "The plants sustain us on Earth and they will help us survive on Mars" says Chris Barron, director of the space program at the institute.
In the experiment, ways will be tested with the help of which it will be possible to rely on the strength of plants that will be adapted to the various conditions in space. When the water supply dries up they will retain moisture. If they are planted they have to make sure that their leaves face the sun and the roots face the ground in order for them to survive. In space it is very difficult to make such adjustments. "If they mess up, they'll die." Brown said.
If the mechanisms that allow them to adapt can be flexed and changed, science could one day engineer plants that are better suited to conditions on other planets, Brown said. On Mars, the gravity is less than half that of Earth and the atmosphere is composed mostly (95 percent) of carbon dioxide. The temperatures in winter drop many dozens of degrees below zero.
"There are a lot of important things we need to do before we can determine that a trip to Mars is feasible," says Terry Lomax, NASA's assistant administrator for research. This experiment is one of them, she states.
In the experiment, which is expected to be conducted in about two years, Brown and his team will use Arabidopsis, a type of grass on which experiments are conducted in molecular biology laboratories. The scientists will send some normal types of grass, as well as grasses designed to be less sensitive to gravity, to the space station. Using the tools of genomics, they will try to capture the molecular essence that plants will use to adapt to the space environment. "In the absence of gravity, other factors may become more important. If there is light, will the plants aim for it? asks researcher Imra Ferrera, who created the genetically modified plants for the team at the University of North Carolina.
The scientists do not know when a shuttle will be able to transport their experiments to the space station, due to the freeze on flights since the Columbia disaster. Discovery is expected to be launched to the station in May 2005. The space station itself is also suffering from problems. Earlier this month, the station's two crew members were ordered to eat less to conserve the dwindling food supply. The scientists are still confident that the project will be put on the station. Wendy Boss, also a member of the team, says that the experiment may shed light on the way in which different creatures, including humans, function. "We need to know the basic biology of all the different creatures." Boss says. "They all represent different pieces of the same pie."
The scientist adds: Many experiments in the field of growing food were carried out on the Russian space station Mir and rumor has it that due to a delay in the arrival of a supply spacecraft, the astronauts had to eat the lettuce grown in these experiments.
For news on ABC News
Yadan International Space Station
https://www.hayadan.org.il/BuildaGate4/general2/data_card.php?Cat=~~~36473713~~~8&SiteName=hayadan
