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What Teens Say...
Name: Levi Bissell
Essay Theme: Cultivating New Technologies |
State: Massachusetts
School: Herberg Middle School |
Grain Grown in the Galaxy |
Fanning in space is a new and growing idea that will change
space travel and many aspects of human life. This new agriculture
is being developed to affect long-term stays in space, such
as moon colonization, make support systems to produce food,
and recycle human wastes. This development of growing plants
in space will surely not only change space travel, but also,
it will alter the ways of life on Earth.
The growth of this innovative farming is a very complex advance
in agriculture. NASA is the group from which the idea of plant
growth in space has sprung. Several organizations, such as Orbitec
and Utah State University, have expanded from NASA's study.
Plants
such as dwarf wheat, Apogee, and super dwarf are all wheats
that scientists think will grow in space. Super dwarf wheat
is the only one of the three to have been tested in space for
growing results. The first crop of the super dwarf grown in
space grew poorly and produced low yields. Any growing of plants
for eating will probably take place on the international space
station, which is the location where the super dwarf wheat was
grown.
Growing wheat in space is no easy task. Carbon dioxide levels
are set; there are also set temperatures, and light must shine
all day. There are no spacious fields for the plants to grow
in. Not only do the scientists have to adapt the conditions
for plant life, but they also must discover a plant that survives
in these present conditions that are so different from those
on Earth. The plants that are being grown in space are without
their roots in soil; the roots are suspended in the air.
Growing
wheat in space is being developed for space missions that will
involve large crews and/or large amounts of equipment so that
food will not add to the weight in a shuttle at lift-off.
In
the future, farming in space will greatly affect life. Spacecrafts
won't need as much fuel to lift food for astronauts, and eventually,
more food will be available to the public because of more farming
locations.
Farming in space will impact our lives, farming, and space expeditions
very much. With our thirst for knowledge and answers, we have
commenced to solve the problem of diminishing farmland and the
problem of getting food to astronauts more readily.
References:
| <http://asgsb.indstate.edulnewsletter/v
14 _3/farm- space.htm1> |
| <http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/index.htm!> |
| <http://www.usu.edu/cpl/newsrels.htm!> |
This essay was part of a 2003 essay contest sponsored by
Council for Agricultural Science & Technology.
Click here to see how essays were
selected.
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