A plan to send “gardens” full of plants to orbit

Imagine industrial activity in space, liberating the Earth on Earth. Hollywood managers shoot films in orbit. Plant scientists travel back and forth to verify space gardens. She and her colleagues are currently seeking funding to help make their concept a reality. The model, made from the London Millimeter Design Company, is for display only. A real version, if it fly ever, you will be uninhabited by humans, at least in the beginning. Ask why her team was very desperate to reach aesthetic design, in this case. “It is something that the audience’s imagination can recover,” explains.

Space Garden with its accessories closed.

Photo: Rakil Deniz

It can be opened to give garden plants access to light.

Photo: Rakil Deniz

But is it my work? The load -bearing arms that stand out of the space garden look very fragile. EKBLAW says these telescopes are usually pulled. “Most of the time, the structure looks like a little berries – without those covered weapons,” she added. Upon closure, lobes will protect plants in the middle, behind their thick windows, from light – but the structure can open in order to allow light to reach plants. It is a mechanical controlled alternative to Earth Day.

In the end, EKBLAW suggests, astronauts may stop via the space garden to collect samples from them. She says open data that follows environmental conditions on the plane and plant growth rates, will also add to our understanding of how to successfully plant food in space.

When I offer a Space Park to Dixon, he says it looks “fictional” immediately, and it immediately opens that there may be no great need to develop food in space any time soon: “We can arm ourselves with enough supplies to manage it.” He says he cannot see “large -scale” gardens floating in space, but he says the psychological benefit of the presence of familiar plants alongside astronauts is a “good idea”.

Alestir Griffiths, Director of Science at the Royal Gardening Association in the United Kingdom, participated in a project to send missile seeds – a suitable option – to ISS With British astronaut Tim Beck in 2015. From the idea of ​​a space garden, given its complex form, he says that there can be some practical challenges when transferring such a design, but he praises the general approach: “I think it should be beautiful and link to nature.”

The parks here on Earth are incredibly varied. They contain plants and design features that represent the characters of people behind them. Space gardens may not be different. Given the opportunity, the green astronauts who are definitely preferred with them.

On the one hand, Dixon has tried barley seeds long ago, as he sent a lot to orbit and returned to Earth, with many of his research supported by Glinpite whiskey distillation in Scotland. “It is a bucket. I will plant barley on the moon,” he says.

For Griffits, another option comes to mind. “I will plant the strawberry factory,” says after a moment you think about many possibilities. “But the strawberry plant, which also contains bright red petals.” Fragaria X Ananassa is the variety it chooses. If it goes throughout the way to space, it should be more edible places, as it argues.

Someone will have to reach space dairy products, though, if anyone there wants a fresh cream with their cosmic jackets.