Chinese
astronauts are preparing to grow fresh vegetables on Mars and the Moon after
researchers successfully completed a preliminary test in Beijing, state media
reported.
Four kinds of vegetables were grown in an
“ecological life support system”, a 300 cubic metre cabin which will allow astronauts
to develop their own stocks of air, water and food while on space missions,
Xinhua news agency said.
Extra-terrestrial gardening
The system, which relies on plants and algae, is
“expected to be used in extra-terrestrial bases on the Moon or Mars,” the
report said.
Participants in the experiment could “harvest fresh
vegetables for meals”, Xinhua quoted Deng Yibing, a researcher at Beijing’s
Chinese Astronaut Research and Training Centre, as saying.
“Chinese astronauts may get fresh vegetables and oxygen
supplies by gardening in extra-terrestrial bases in the future,” the report
said, adding that the experiment was the first of its kind in China.
China has said it will land an exploratory craft on
the Moon for the first time next year, as part of an ambitious space programme
that includes a long-term plan for a manned Moon landing.
The Asian superpower has been ramping up its manned
space activities as the United States, long the leader in the field, has scaled
back some of its programmes, such as retiring its iconic space shuttle fleet.
Communists in space
In its last white paper on space, China said it was
working towards landing a man on the moon – a feat so far only achieved by the
United States, most recently in 1972 – although it did not give a time frame.
China’s first astronaut Yang Liwei said last month
that Chinese astronauts may start a branch of China’s ruling Communist Party in
space, state media reported.
“If we establish a party branch in space, it would
also be the ‘highest’ of its kind in the world,” Xinhua quoted Yang as saying.
The astronaut was launched into space and orbited
the Earth aboard the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft in 2003.
Credit: iStockphoto
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