Life Will Find A Way
ISS Science Officer Don Pettit has posted two new entries in his Space Chronicles series.
Here's Pettit on growing plants in space:
"To construct my planter, a spherical core is needed. An old pair of underwear worked well. We have supplies on station sufficient to change our underwear perhaps once every three to four days so I figured there might be a few nutrients in there as well. An old pair of underwear was folded into a sphere and held in place with a few well-placed stitches using needle and thread from our sewing kit. The toilet paper was sewn to the outer surface. A drinking straw was sewn so that its opening was in contact with the fabric and could thus be connected to a drink bag to provide a continuous water drip via capillary action. Seeds were planted with a pair of tweezers by carefully working each seed between the weft of the gauze. The sphere was initially watered and then attached to the water bag by a long thin plastic tube, which also functioned as a string and hung by a light in the node. It bobbed around in the air currents.
I became concerned, when after a few days, no sign of sprouting had occurred."

:: :: 13:17 :: David :: [permalink] ::