Digest Number 713

On Monday, September 29, 2003, at 02:08 PM, Lucio de Souza Coelho

> By the way, aren't there far less ambitious closed/semi-closed
> ecosystem
> experiments with far better results? I remember seeing a Discovery
> channel-type documentary where there was such an experiment with
> results good
> enough to be used "in a trip to Mars" (what else? :-). They used
> something
> like a refrigerator with edible plants growing on hydroponics shelves
> with
> artificial light. Supposedly "refrigerator" could produce food and air
> in a
> timescale compatible with Mars trips (a couple of years, I guess). Does
> anyone knows what I'm talking about? I'm really not in the mood to do
> an
> Internet search...
>

Sounds like the NASA Ames Salad Machine. It was not a closed
ecological system, but rather something to make food, air, and clean
some water. It was a completely artificial plant growing chamber, but
not air tight. It was particularly good at growing lettuce, which is
why (I think) they called it the Salad Machine.

Space tourism could be our ticket to the stars. Save your pennies,
suborbital flights for $100,000 may start in 2005! See
http://www.spaceadventures.com/suborbital 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.