FLASH! - New Report says plants love SPS, why not environmentalists

>
> Zubrin's argument about plants on Mars revolves around the Martian
> atmosphere providing protection from solar flares. This allows
> inflatable greenhouses to work since you don't need shielding.
> Obviously, on the Moon plants in a green house with thin glass would
> be fried in the first solar storm. Marshall Savage gets around this
> by using water for shielding -- which requires a lot of water. You
> also have to worry about things growing in the water and clouding it
> up.
>
> Zubrin says artificial lights won't work because of the power
> requirements. Anybody have good data on power requirements for
> growing things in artificial lights (food crops, not... oh, you know).
>
>> Mike,
>> as always when biological system are concerned things are a little
>> bit more complex than black and white.
>> Yes, plantsgrowth is directly related to the amount of solar energy
>> available, up to a point.
>> For instance no light=no growth. Plants can't live without it. From
>> then on, the more the better, up to the max energy that the plant can
>> use. More than that is wasted, or rather is not used by the plant.
>> Different kind of plants can use a different amount of light.
>> There are places on Earth where there is lots of light but plants
>> can't grow for other reason, like temperature and/or water.
>> In places like deserts reducing the amount of light that reach the
>> soil may infact help vegetation to grow.
>>
>> As for Mars, Mr.. Zubrin is just plane wrong if he says that, for the
>> obvious reason that the moon offers a much better environment
>> already, and is rather closer.
>> Even if there is no water on the Moon, there is plenty of solar
>> energy, and water can be produced out of it. Mars may have water but
>> has very little solar energy, so it's at least as bad as the moon AND
>> it's a quintibazillion miles further away. Mars sucks, sorry.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Claudio
>>
>> not environmentalists
>>
>> But is what you're saying the same as saying if we take a corn field
>> and reduce the amount of sunlight falling on it to one half or one
>> third normal that it wouldn't have significant consequences for
>> yield?
>>
>> It's just that even Bob Zubrin, who champions Mars as the only place
>> besides Earth where crops can be economically grown, freely admits
>> that plant energetics is directly related to the amount of solar
>> energy available. If crops would grow just as well with 1/2 normal
>> sunlight because they can't really use the otherhalf anyway, I think
>> he'd be shouting that fact from the rooftops.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Mike Combs
>>
> ----------------------
> The International Space Station's (ISS) most important legacy may be
> jump-starting space tourism. Consider: the first space tourist, Dennis
> Tito, was supposed to go to the Soviet era Mir space station. Under
> pressure from NASA, Russia de-orbited the Mir which resulted in Mr.
> Tito going to the ISS instead. Now the Mir was a terrific space
> station, but by the time of Tito's trip it was also old, smelly,
> crowded and probably not all that nice. The ISS was brand new, shiny,
> much more roomy, etc. Mr. Tito came back to Earth with glowing
> accounts of how great space is. Would his experience have been as good
> on Mir?
>
> Al Globus
> CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
> http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html
>
> Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
> position of any organization I'm familiar with.
>

The materials in one asteroid (the largest ) are sufficient to make
orbital space colonies with ~150 times the surface area of the Earth in
usable real estate. See http://lifesci3.arc.nasa.gov/SpaceSettlement/
for details.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.