Get ready for launch, it’s time for the latest edition of Gardeners off World!
21.08.2023 - 11:51 / theunconventionalgardener.com / Emma Doughty
What did you get for Christmas? Hopefully something good, something seedy and something spacey!
Astronauts on the ISS baked cookies for Santa! They used the new Zero G oven to cook sample cookies, the first food to be baked in space. We were able to bake the samples, but it took a few attempts to figure out how long they had to stay in the oven.
“The oven is very, very simple to use, and I think it worked as expected.”
Although the first three cookies “came out pretty doughy”, the last two “were nice and brown, with melted chocolate chips”. Sadly they’re not yet rated as safe for human consumption, so they’re all stored in the freezer and will be returned to Earth for analysis.
(Neither Santa nor the astronauts missed out entirely – some pre-baked cookies were sent up with the oven for them to eat!)
Metro has a lovely photo story about Christmas in Rothera Research Station in Antarctica. Researchers there were guaranteed a white Christmas, and were able to make mince pies. They had to be very restrained not to eat their Christmas dinner early though; it arrived by ship last May!
“Travelling to Antarctica is the closest thing you’ll get to interplanetary travel while staying earth-bound,” one old Antarctic hand told me when I visited the British Antarctic Survey’s HQ in Cambridge.
Two teams of scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center got a really exciting gift – Moon samples that have been sealed for fifty years. They’ll be analysing the regolith in ways that Apollo-era scientists couldn’t have dreamed about, looking for clues to how life evolved in our solar system. They will also study how eons of radiation have shaped the Moon’s surface chemistry, and how best to keep samples uncontaminated for long periods.
“The
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.
This week, Gardeners Off World is blasting off to celebrate an off-world Thanksgiving. Let’s rehydrate some turkey!
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!
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.