Have space greenhouse, will travel
AzBiz.com
The moon’s first resident won’t be human but will still require a space suit, of sorts.
Fortunately, space suits are something of a specialty for Paragon Space Development Corporation, the Tucson-based company that is working on sending a plant inside a tiny greenhouse slightly larger than a two-liter soda bottle to the lunar surface in order to study how plants grow in microgravity.
Tucson-based Paragon Space Development plans to sent the first plant to the moon as part of a bid for the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize. The lucky lunarnaut is a brassica napus, commonly known as rapeseed.
“Nobody’s ever grown a plant in fractional gravity before,†said Paragon Chairman and CEO Taber MacCallum, adding that he also worked on growing things in the zero-gravity of Russian space station Mir.
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Just what we need a 30 million dollar prize winning rapeseed plant.
How about a proper international space development program, with a mature token of American leadership and vision :
For example
The construction of a fleet of interchangable international space shuttles, one for each participating space faring nation
Establishment of a comprehensive international lunar settlement, which will provide inspiration for all peoples and for a future world
Government enabled focus for the essential space/communications/information industries into global development and planetary sustainability
Purpose to clean up the layers of space debris, tackle asteroid mitigation and make sure that the jump into the space age does not cause any more damage to the ozone layer.
Ensuring that exponential data banks are not used to exploit populations and that all civil societies are assured of adequate representation within the e-governments of the future
What is the space age, what will that outcome be envisioned as … and what will it become ?
No time left now for dreaming about the journey to the stars, the answers have to be the practical ones that will optimize co-operative venture into structures for human survival.