Plant Sciences Commons^™

Failure Analysis Research Summary: Mitigating The Effects Of Prolonged Darkness With Low Temperature And Low Light, Julie K. Chard, Giridhar Akula, Bruce Bugbee

NASA

Power loss is a common failure in controlled environments. The duration of power loss can be several days – and even weeks – in space environments. Long-duration power loss and the resulting darkness can cause plants to die unless remedial measures are taken during the power outage. Emergency back-up power from batteries could provide low light and reduced air temperature. Plant metabolism and growth are reduced in low temperature. As metabolism slows, energy requirements are reduced and less light is needed. The temperature should be maintained above the chilling temperature for the plant, which is species dependent. The addition of …

Failure Analysis: Crop Production On The Lunar Surface, Julie K. Chard, Giridhar Akula, Bruce Bugbee

NASA

We have sought to optimize conditions for crop yield for many years, but optimal conditions will not always be cost effective. More importantly, environmental control systems routinely fail, and we need to learn how to gracefully recover from these failures.

Failures of the power supply system are among the most common and most detrimental of all system failures. A battery back-up could supply a small amount of power during a power outage, but we need to know how to best utilize the back-up power.

Early in this project, it became clear that the detrimental effects of a power loss could …

Ethylene Synthesis And Sensitivity In Crop Plants, Stephen P. Klassen, Bruce Bugbee

NASA

Closed and semi-closed plant growth chambers have long been used in studies of plant and crop physiology. These studies include the measurement of photosynthesis and transpiration via photosynthetic gas exchange. Unfortunately, other gaseous products of plant metabolism can accumulate in these chambers and cause artifacts in the measurements. The most important of these gaseous by products is the plant hormone ethylene (C2H4). In spite of hundreds of manuscripts on ethylene, we still have a limited understanding of the synthesis rates throughout the plant life cycle. We also have a poor understanding of the sensitivity of intact, rapidly growing plants to …

Crop Production On The Lunar Surface Using Solar Fiber Optics: Mitigating The Effects Of Prolonged Darkness With Low Temperature And Low Light, Bruce Bugbee, Julie K. Chard

NASA

Plant metabolism and growth are reduced in low temperature. As metabolism slows, energy requirements are reduced and less light is needed. The temperature should be maintained above the chilling temperature for the plant, which is species dependent. The addition of light will allow the plant to continue to expend energy on maintenance and some growth. Here we show that low light and cool temperatures can be used to maintain plants through the 14.7 days on the dark side of the Moon. Growth resumes immediately after the light is restored.