Can China grow a flower on the moon? The countdown begins
- Chinese space agency to broadcast experiment that ‘could pave the way for human life in outer space’
In the 2015 blockbuster The Martian, Matt Damon plays an astronaut who gets stranded on Mars and survives by growing potatoes, producing enough food to last months.
China’s lunar mission could bring that piece of science fiction a step closer to reality if it succeeds in growing the first flower on the moon in less than a hundred days’ time, an experiment that the China National Space Administration said it would soon broadcast.
When the Chang’e 4 spacecraft landed on the far side of the moon on January 3, its cargo included an airtight container known as a “moon surface micro-ecological circle”.
At 18cm high and 16cm in diameter, the aluminium alloy cylinder contains silkworm eggs and seeds for potatoes and a kind of cress.
It weighs only 3kg but cost more than 10 million yuan (about US$1.5 million) – the internal camera alone cost 600,000 yuan.
If all goes well, both plants will root and sprout in the container, producing the first flower on the surface of the moon towards the end of a 100-day experimental period, according to the space agency.