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Episode 120: Prof. Gengxin Xie. A Greenhouse on the Moon

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Chang’e 4. Credit Prof. Xei Gengxin

On Thursday, 3rd January 2019, some water was added to some seeds in a tiny greenhouse. The seeds, cotton, potato, Rape and Arabidopsis sprouted. 

Experiments like this have been conducted many times before. What was special about this one was that it was done on the surface of the Moon.

The guest on this episode is Professor Xie Gengxin from Chongqing University in central China. He was the  Chief Designer of this Bio experiment carried to the Moon on Chang’e 4 in January 2019. The interview was recorded in Milan during the International Astronautical Congress 2024.

In summary

  • The Chang’e 4 lunar mission by China landed on the far side of the moon and conducted a unique biological experiment involving cotton, potato, rape, and Arabidopsis seeds, along with fruit fly eggs and yeast, within a small, sealed greenhouse.
  • The primary goal of the experiment was to determine if plants could germinate and grow on the moon despite the lower gravity, lack of atmosphere, intense sunlight and radiation, and extreme temperature variations.
  • Cotton seeds successfully germinated 22 hours after water was added, marking the first instance of plant growth on the moon. These lunar seedlings grew faster than their counterparts in a control experiment on Earth and showed surprising resilience to the cold lunar night.
  • The experiment’s design included features like passive insulation, active temperature control, a small window for natural sunlight, and anti-fogging technology for the cameras monitoring the growth.
  • The findings suggest that lower gravity and higher radiation might have aided plant growth, and the experiment provided valuable insights and led to the development of technologies relevant to future space-based agriculture and the establishment of lunar habitats.
  • This biological experiment is considered a significant step in China’s lunar exploration program, which includes plans for a future lunar base (the International Lunar Research Station) and further research into creating sustainable ecosystems in space, potentially within lunar lava tubes.
Episode 120. A Greenhouse on the Moon.

IAC2019 Heads of Space Agency – Press Conference

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This audio recording captures most of the Q&A that took place on Monday 21st October.

Heads of Space Agency Press Conference.
21 October Washington DC

The agencies represented included

  • S. Somanath, Director, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), India
  • Jim Bridenstine, Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), United States
  • Hiroshi Yamakawa, President, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Japan
  • Sergey Krikalev, Executive Director for Piloted Spaceflights, State Space Corporation ROSCOSMOS, Russian Federation
  • Johann-Dietrich Woerner, Director General, European Space Agency (ESA)

The audio quality is poor in a few brief instances.

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Episode 85 – Russia’s Space programme with Brian Harvey

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Brian Harvey

Brian Harvey is a Dublin based writer who has authored more than 14 books on space. His books have covered the space programmes of USSR/Russia, USA, India, Japan and China. He has a deep understanding of the motivations and politics as well as the space technology that has emerged since the space age. In this episode, we speak about Russia/USSR’s space programme what it was at the outset and its status today.

Some of the topics we discuss include

  • Russian rocket engines still the best in the world.
  • The first factory to build rocket engines for spacecraft was established in Leningrad in 1927.
  • Age profile in Russian space programme – not enough younger people. Compared to the programme in China which is largely less than 40.
  • In 1935 Konstantin Tsiolkovsky invited as a guest of honour at the mayday speech “I believe the first person in space is alive today”. This was in 1935 when Yuri Gagarin was one year old.
  • There were several reasons for the failure for the USSR not get a crewed mission to the Moon. The main one was the lack of programme management.
  • With 39 launches in 2018, China was the leader. Until a few years ago Russia was the world leader of launches. Russia’s planned 45 launches in 2019 is not realistic.
  • China, India and Japan were on par about a decade ago but China has now emerged with a “superpower” status. India has made progress in the number of annual launches, science missions and recently announced its plans to initiate a human space program.
    We discussed the movie Salyut 7 the movie. This is the space station that Rakesh Sharma had visited in 1984.
    Russia space programme, minimal new investment, an ageing workforce, reliability and quality control on a decline.

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Episode 84: NASA after the Shuttle. SLS and The Gateway

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David Baker

David Baker has been involved with the USA since childhood. First attending a US school in England and then studying in the US under a scholarship program sponsored by Senator Clinton P Anderson. He returned to the USA and worked for NASA on various programs from Gemini to the SpaceShuttle. He was present in mission control in 1970 and witnessed the drama of Apollo 13 first hand.

He joined the British Interplanetary Society in 1965, published his first article in the society’s journal Spaceflight in 1969 and since 2011 has been the editor of that very journal -Spaceflight. To date, he has published a remarkable 110 books by the close of 2018 with a few more in the pipeline for 2019 to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Apollo 11.

(Note – following questions on the veracity of his Phd, David Baker resigned from the BIS as the editor of Spaceflight on 25th March 2021.)

In this episode, we talk about the current status of the space programme in the US and the changing role of NASA.

  • The USA has not been able to launch US astronauts from the USA since the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011. NASA found itself in a similar position between 1975 (Apollo Soyuz Test programme) and the first Space Shuttle in 1981.
  • Why NASA dropped the Ares programme and why its replacement, the Space Launch System (SLS) schedule remains unclear. The first SLS mission, uncrewed – Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1) by 2020 and the second crewed mission, Exploration Mission-2 (EM-2) by 2023.
  • The successor to the ISS, the “Gateway” is an international project for a space station in lunar orbit. Only about a third of the size of the ISS and it will have fewer international partners.
  • The gateway is seen by Russia as an American lead programme. Will Russia participate with the gateway or consider a joint Russia/China human spaceflight programme?
  • China/USA cooperation in space has been prohibited ny US law. What prospects that this will change?

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