My Revolution-PARTs

WASHINGTON: That's one small pot of soil, one giant leap for man's knowledge of space agriculture: scientists have for the first time grown plants in lunar soil brought back by astronauts in the Apollo program. The ground-breaking experiment, detailed in the journal Communications Biology on Thursday, has given researchers hope that it may be possible to one day grow plants directly on the Moon. That would save future space missions much hassle and expense, facilitating longer and farther trips. However, according to the study's University of Florida authors, much remains to be studied on the topic, and they intend to leave no stone unturned. For their experiment, the researchers used just 12 grams (a few teaspoons) of lunar soil collected from various spots on the Moon during the Apollo 11, 12, and 17 missions. In tiny thimble-sized pots, they placed about a gram of soil (called "regolith") and added water, then the seeds. They also fed the plants a nutrient ...

WASHINGTON: NASA on Thursday awarded three companies hundreds of millions of dollars to develop commercial space stations it hopes will eventually replace the International Space Station, which is due to retire around the end of the decade. Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, aerospace company Nanoracks, and defense contractor Northrop Grumman won $130 million, $160 million and $125.6 million contracts respectively to develop their orbital outposts. A fourth company, Axiom Space, was previously awarded a $140 million contract. The US space agency is increasingly turning to private industry to develop hardware it once made itself, in order to reduce costs and to focus on its ambitious goals, which include building habitats on the Moon and preparing for a crewed mission to Mars. "We are partnering with US companies to develop the space destinations where people can visit, live, and work, enabling NASA to continue forging a path in space for the benefit of humanity while fostering comme...