Get ready for launch, it’s time for the latest edition of Gardeners off World!
21.08.2023 - 11:51 / theunconventionalgardener.com / Emma Doughty
Hello, and welcome to Gardeners Off World, a weekly round-up of news and entertainment for people who rather fancy getting their hands dirty on another planet!
During its 2019 Steampunks in Space celebrations, the National Space Centre launched the Queen Faketoria Space Programme. The first intrepid astronaut in this programme was Stu the Teddynaut, who launched to the heavens on a helium balloon. After a successful mission, Stu returned to the Space Centre for tea and biscuits and was promoted to Ursa Major. Let’s start today with the video of his adventure:
In December 1972, the last of the ‘dusty dozen‘ walked on the Moon. Geologist Harrison Hagan “Jack” Schmitt became the first of NASA’s member of scientist-astronauts to fly in space, and is still the only professional scientist to have gone beyond the space station. Before he started his own astronaut training, Schmitt helped to train the other Apollo astronauts who would walk on the Moon.
While they were on the Moon, Schmitt and Gene Cernan “drove a 4-centimeter-wide tube into the surface of the Moon” to collect samples. Some of those samples remained unopened for more than 40 years, but now NASA’s Apollo Next-Generation Sample Analysis (ANGSA) initiative is using advanced technologies to study them. They cracked open one sample in November, and a second is scheduled to be analysed in January.
“We are able to make measurements today that were just not possible during the years of the Apollo program. “The analysis of these samples will maximize the science return from Apollo, as well as enable a new generation of scientists and curators to refine their techniques and help prepare future explorers for lunar missions anticipated in the 2020s and beyond.”
NASA has some
Get ready for launch, it’s time for the latest edition of Gardeners off World!
This week, Gardeners Off World watched as the latest SpaceX launch (CRS-19) delivered more exciting experiments to the International Space Station (ISS).
This morning, the Boeing Company’s CST-100 Starliner capsule launched on its first mission to the International Space Station. The aim of this uncrewed Orbital Test Flight (OFT) was to demonstrate that the spacecraft is ready to transport NASA astronauts and cargo. An instrumented mannequin named Rosie (named after the WW2 icon Rosie the Riveter, and a nod to the trailblazing women in aerospace and human spaceflight) took the place of a crew.
Welcome interplanetary gardeners! This week’s Gardeners off World starts with a little video Boeing has put together of the inside of the crew cabin on the recent Starliner test flight (the one that took tree seeds into space). You can see Rosie the instrumented mannequin, but the highlight is watching astronaut Snoopy float about as the spacecraft reaches orbit, and then plop back down into his seat during the descent!
Hello! Welcome to Gardeners off World. The big news for space gardeners this week is that NASA has determined that the salads grown in Veggie are safe to eat. And a team of Russian researchers have developed a prototype for an orbital greenhouse. The Orbital Biological Automatic Module includes smart lighting to accelerate plant growth, specialised hydroponics, automated irrigation and harvesting solutions. It could be heading to the International Space Station (ISS) – “Humanity’s home in Low Earth Orbit” – in the next few years.
Hello! Welcome to Gardeners Off World. This week we’ll start with a musical interlude, as violinist Lindsey Stirling recently performed her song, Artemis, on top of the Launch Control Center at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center:
Hello, and welcome to Gardeners Off World, your round-up of interplanetary news and views. NASA’s Christina Koch returned to Earth yesterday, after spending 328 days onboard the International Space Station (ISS) – the longest single spaceflight by a woman. Koch participated in three expeditions – 59, 60 and 61 – during her first spaceflight. ESA’s Luca Parmitano and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov came home on the same flight.
Hello, and welcome to Gardeners off World! On 15 February, the NG-13 cargo ship blasted off from NASA Wallops on its way to the International Space Station (ISS). It arrived on 18 February, where NASA astronaut Drew Morgan caught it with the Canadarm2 robotic arm.
What did you get for Christmas? Hopefully something good, something seedy and something spacey!
This week, Gardeners Off World is blasting off to celebrate an off-world Thanksgiving. Let’s rehydrate some turkey!
Welcome to Gardeners Off World, my weekly round-up of news for green-fingered space nuts! It’s time to suit up and head out into the solar system
It’s Day 19 of the Great British Blast Off, and crew is finding it hard to adjust to life in the isolation of space. Mission Control is having trouble controlling its Isonauts, many of whom keep popping out of the airlock on “essential business”. Some of the Space Dogs are complaining of exhaustion from all the extra spacewalks.