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Comment by Gustomaximus | Hacker News Reader

Hasn't plant growth been happening for a few years in space? Like the salad they grew and ate in ISS.

Is this such big news because it's an ongoing step in living in space or am I missing something.

Not trying to take away from the achievement but just curious why this is such a big story. I'd thought there would be more news focus on the dark side of the moon updates or astronomy potential of being there type thing.

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What I heard is that we have data on plant growth on Earth (1G) and on the ISS (0G), but not at reduced gravity like on the Moon (.17G).

It would be easier to produce the .17G on the ISS (with a centrifuge) than putting these seeds on the moon.

That's so not the case (mostly for reasons of size) that the Germans are flying Eucropis as a separate mission right now. It will do spin-simulated lunar and mars g.

I suspect if the US had done it, it would be plastered everywhere.

I assume it's because its the first plant grown 'on' the moon.

But that was done on ISS, in Earth's orbit. This is on the Moon which seems like a bit more of a breakthrough. It probably means we can grow plants on every planetary body in the Solar system. So Moon, Mars. Very promising.

What is the breakthrough part here? If we can grow in 1g and 0g, is 0.2g surprising at all?

Well now we have experimental evidence that it's possible. That is quite important.

The question isn't just whether something can grow in .2g but how fast it can grow, what shape it will take, etc. This is all stuff you need to nail down if you want to try to survive on crops grown on the Moon some day.

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