🚀 go-pugleaf

Doug.Bashford%ow@salata.com (Doug Bashford) writes:

>  
>  
>  Headline:  Chemist takes NASA breather
>  From Aug 19, Fresno Bee, AP, Mike Drago, SPACE CENTER, Houston

>  Another NASA fund raising propaganda effort failed.  When will
>  people understand that "man-in-a-bottle" experiments are all
>  doomed to failure.  We cannot even seal three simple taxa in 
>  a bottle.  Such efforts have all resulted in sterility as sure 
>  as if they had been in an autoclave.  The biosphere is too 
>  complex to imitate.
>  
>  Subheadline: Experiment on oxygen-producing capability of
>  plants declared a success
>  
>  A British chemist was sealed in a 10X10 room for 15 days where he 
>  relied on 30,000 wheat plants and 64 high intensity lamps in the
>  next room for oxygen.

>  "The space agency wanted to demonstrate that plants alone could 
>  provide breathable air for one person for 15 days."  Well, Du-uuh!
>  Problem is, it didn't do that at all.  Too much oxygen was 
>  produced.  So they had to circulate air in from outside.

The experiment "failed?" I would say instead it succeded beyond anyone's 
expectations. You can always just burn off some extra O2 but CO2's kindof 
harder to get rid of.

>  Just how simple and short can we make an experiment that works?
>  One would think 15 days was doable.  Seems not.

>  "NASA said the project shows humans could eventually thrive 
>  on the moon or Mars with systems that recycle life-sustaining
>  elements."  
>  
>  Oh, really?  Send money, right? 

I hope not. With Newt, we may be able to privatise nasa, or at least 
shuttle services. Experiments like this will pave the way to support 
factories in orbit such as those now being proposed by some of the large 
aerospace companies. (and talked about for decades.) Its an interesting 
experiment as it shows cless is possible. Anyways, an experiment like 
this is extremly low buget. This is the kind of thing NASA should be 
doing. I.E.: small scale/innovative experiments, paving the way for other 
parties to step in in the future....

anyways...

>  


>... Global per capita grain production down 8% in eight years....
I've never heard that/attached much importance to such a figure. Probably 
represents burgeoning populations of asian countries which use rice as 
their staple.

>"All that was required of them was a primitive
>patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was
>necessary to make them accept longer working hours or
>shorter rations. And even when they became discontented,
>as they sometimes did, their discontent led nowhere,
>because, being without general ideas, they could only
>focus it on petty specific grievances.  The larger evils
>invariably escaped their notice."
>                                 --  George Orwell, 1984

Kindof reminds you of FSU, China or North Korea.
--
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Jay Thomas, jthomas@pluto.njcc.com http://pluto.njcc.com/~jthomas
Portions of this .sig licencsed from Joe Ragosta (docjoe@interramp.com)