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news Peppers in space!

Would be really cool to keep a close eye on their progress. We've all seen peppers grown a hundred different ways, but in space!? That's awesome!
 
The Chinese have already done it, and you can buy seeds from them.
 
Hangjiao Space Chillies.
 
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This is one of the Hangjiao 8 that I grew last season, before the fruit fly got to the rest of them
 
SpeakPolish said:
Slight difference. This current plan is to grow a plant. The Chinese just sent seeds, and irradiated them with cosmic and stellar radiation.
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I seriously doubt that radiation does anything positive for seeds of any type.
 
SpeakPolish said:
Then do not eat anything at all. Evolution happens because of cosmic and stellar radiation.
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This may be a factor, but cells do mutate on their own without radiation.  Not to mention radiation can cause cell damage as well as mutation.
 
While growing peppers in space is pretty dang cool, I can't get over this article using that stupid picture for the headline.  How lazy are these journalists that they use a picture of an apple tree, on the moon, when talking about astronauts on the space station growing peppers.  I mean come on, really?  I guess a moon apple tree is better for clickbait, the new york post is a cesspool these days.
 
There are already several plant species growing in space.  NASA has a plant sciences division that develops new strains that are specifically meant to be grown in space.  There are several cultivars of tomatoes that were developed, for the single purpose of being able to grow small plants with abundant yields.
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I was part of an engineering design team that put a grow station on the ISS.  It was a self-contained unit, about the size of a microwave oven.  It had every system needed to grow miniature tomato plants.  Temperature regulation, CO2 injection, ethylene purge, nutrient injection, light cycling, etc.  Right now, there are no large scale food operations.  But food has been grown in space for quite some time.  Even before the project I worked on.  At the moment, most of it gets sent back to earth for study, but I did see a recent video of astronauts sampling the food that was grown.
 
Oh, yeah...  The point I was trying to make...  In all likelihood, unless they sent an actual grow tent up there, this variety will have to be re-engineered to grow smaller.  Space is a critical concern, and from my experience with the matter, there is no way to grow a full size plant.  Even if there were, it would be a single point of failure.  So maybe in the future, there will be a novelty "space pepper" plant that will be ideal for the aerogarden or window sill grower.
 
solid7 said:
There are already several plant species growing in space.  NASA has a plant sciences division that develops new strains that are specifically meant to be grown in space.  There are several cultivars of tomatoes that were developed, for the single purpose of being able to grow small plants with abundant yields.
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I was part of an engineering design team that put a grow station on the ISS.  It was a self-contained unit, about the size of a microwave oven.  It had every system needed to grow miniature tomato plants.  Temperature regulation, CO2 injection, ethylene purge, nutrient injection, light cycling, etc.  Right now, there are no large scale food operations.  But food has been grown in space for quite some time.  Even before the project I worked on.  At the moment, most of it gets sent back to earth for study, but I did see a recent video of astronauts sampling the food that was grown.
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That is actually extremely cool! But I assume with something like a Raspberry Pi and some sensors, that is all relatively simple to make. But there are new concerns now. Gravitropism plays a huge role in seed germination. In the ISS it is weightless, and that is sure to affect germination.
 
SpeakPolish said:
That is actually extremely cool! But I assume with something like a Raspberry Pi and some sensors, that is all relatively simple to make. But there are new concerns now. Gravitropism plays a huge role in seed germination. In the ISS it is weightless, and that is sure to affect germination.
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Raspberry Pi and its compatible peripherals are for hobbyists.  Anything that goes into space has been put through a rigorous set of calculations, and are assigned a mission success probability - and the numbers that hardware are designed around are pretty ridiculous.   (it's all calculus based statistics, but if you understand that, think of numbers on the order of .0001% failure probability)  The items mentioned wouldn't make the cut...
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I'm not a plant scientist, but I know that they have no issues, whatsoever, with sprouting seeds in a zero-G environment.  If there's a trick to doing it, it's well known.
 
solid7 said:
 
Raspberry Pi and its compatible peripherals are for hobbyists.  Anything that goes into space has been put through a rigorous set of calculations, and are assigned a mission success probability - and the numbers that hardware are designed around are pretty ridiculous.   (it's all calculus based statistics, but if you understand that, think of numbers on the order of .0001% failure probability)  The items mentioned wouldn't make the cut...
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I'm not a plant scientist, but I know that they have no issues, whatsoever, with sprouting seeds in a zero-G environment.  If there's a trick to doing it, it's well known.
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I realize that. I am just saying the process of making that is easier than it was a decade ago. NASA has already grown several leafy greens, so plants do grow. Fruits have not been tested, if Im correct.
 
SpeakPolish said:
I realize that. I am just saying the process of making that is easier than it was a decade ago. NASA has already grown several leafy greens, so plants do grow. Fruits have not been tested, if Im correct.
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Ha...  You don't know know government agencies very well.  Most stuff is put together from design standards that only the "grey beards" know where to find.  You have to thoroughly vet every piece of equipment through an M&P engineer, and that layer of bureaucracy can take months or years.  NASA employees are pretty comfy.  There isn't usually a real sense of urgency. LOL
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It's why private industry is spanking the government arm, at the moment.
 
DontPanic said:
Hey! It looks like we're finally "Go Flight!" for this experiment.  :)
 
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nasa-astronauts-international-space-station-growing-chile-peppers/
 
According to this article, it is the hybrid NuMex Improved Espanola.  So, since they won't grow true, I don't expect there'll be a public distribution of these seeds like the Chinese did after they launched some pepper seeds into space.
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Wow, a bit more anticlimactic than I expected, but still neat
 
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