One small step for man, one giant leap for flowers…

Back in 1961 one man stepped up to the rostrum of the United States Congress and announced his intention to place a man on the moon, that man was of course John. F. Kennedy. A year later in a historic speech, J.F.K spoke in front of a huge audience outside Rice University in Houston, Texas and once again announced his commitment to place an American on the moon within the decade. In 1969 Kennedy’s vision came true after NASA successfully orchestrated the first moon landing, or so they would have you believe….

Even before Neil Armstrong stepped forth and spoke those historic words, scientists and governments have been obsessed with blasting objects and animals into space. Monkeys, cats, dogs, chimps, fish, frogs, mice, spiders and even a tortoise have made the epic voyage, thou none have yet managed to make it to the moon. Recently an American company based in Arizona announced that it intended to be the first team to successfully grow flowers on the moon. The Paragon Space Development team are taking part in Google’s $30m Lunar X prize competition. The main aim of the competition is to safely land a robot on the surface of the Moon, travel 500 meters over the lunar surface, and send images and data back to the Earth. As part of their experiment, PSD are designing and building an unmanned greenhouse module which will be used to incubate fast-growing mustard seeds on the lunar surface, in the hopes of producing flowering plants.

Like the Biosphere 2 projects of the early 90’s, the intent is to create an enclosed sustainable habitat capable of growing and maintaining life on the lunar surface. The team believes that if they are able to do this then the images sent back to Earth will rekindle enthusiasm for research into lunar habitation projects. The team are currently devising hydration systems as the mustard seeds will already be well on the way to flowering by the time the landing module reaches the moon. The team remain confident of success and hope to nab the first prize of $20m by 2011. Odyssey Moon founder Bob Richards the current developers of the landing module stated “We’re not in a race. We’re trying to come up with a viable commercial enterprise so we can start to populate the moon with more and more missions.”

So keep your eyes peeled on those food labels folks because soon you’ll be seeing the words ‘cultivated on the moon’.

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