Today I am at the Diversified Agriculture Conference in Logan. Some of us went on a tour of the research greenhouses where the university is working on plant varieties and growing systems/techniques for outer space. Very interesting. They are working with and developing some amazing ultra-dwarf plant varieties. Here are some interesting things that I'm sure you have been wondering and worrying about that they have had to figure out: how to water plants without gravity to pull water through the soil, how to keep the soil in the mini-growboxes from just drifting up into the atmosphere of the space station, how to give the plants enough light without letting the sunlight overheat the station and what to do with the soil after harvest when there isn't one square inch of room onboard for anything that isn't essential.
OK, so maybe you haven't been wondering about those things, but they were interesting. And the next time you need to pull some radishes out of a growbox at zero-gravity without getting "dirt clods" all over in the space station atmosphere, you'll be glad someone has figured out how to do it.
And a special thinks to Liz for the heads-up on the total lunar eclipse. We went outside at 8:20 and could see the pale red shadow of the moon at totality :)
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I hadn't wondered about any of those things, but I'm glad that there are people who think about that stuff!
Glad you caught the eclipse. We couldn't see it down here at all. Bummer. There's not another one until December 2010.
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