Brit scientists over the Moon after growing tea in lunar soil British boffins say they've discovered a way of taking one of the country's favorite pastimes – having a nice cup of tea – into outer space. As part of a study into how the astronauts of tomorrow could sustain themselves for long periods of living and working on the Moon, researchers from the University of Kent have …
"Musk has long bigged up how he'll go on a rocket to Mars"
He's talked about sending rockets, but I don't recall him ever saying he'd be on one. What he's building are B arks.
Richard Branson flew on Space Ship Two and Jeff Bezos has flown on New Sheppard. Elon hasn't even taken a quick ride to ISS.
To be honest I'd prefer tea instead of potatoes fertilised with Musk's manure and I'm not a tea drinker.
Is why the English colonised the Moon.
Well, it's sunnier than Yorkshire. And it doesn't rain as much. If you can build some kind of railgun, then global logistics is cheaper than from Yorkshire. Land is cheaper than Yorkshire. And best of all, there are no Yorkshiremen...
The question is whether to rebrand to Lunar Tea or Moonshire Tea?
Now get rocket launched lad, then get kettle on.
Don't need a railgun, we got 'orses. We'll mek do.
Can't wait. We'll finally have something to moan about with the grandkids.
You youngsters 'ave it easy wi' yer spaceships and yer pressurised suits. When I were young, I 'ad to be dragged 238,000 miles on't wooden pallete by't steam powered pit pony ter moon in't freezing vacuum of space t'get t'work wi' nowt but a fishbowl on me 'ead in zero fuckin' G. You ever tried shovelling coal in space? That's how we lost Wally. Last thing we saw was the trail of smoke off 'is fag. Never 'eard me complainin'. Didn't 'ave air in our day, didn't need it. Few puffs of a fag and a deep breath and wi were ready. We even 'ad to grow us own tea when we got there. You wouldn't get me on one o' them knob shaped Bezos rockets. People might get wrong idea an that...we 'ad none o' that round here, folk wouldn't stand for it...besides we 'ad the Dibner space programme. No ropes or nowt, just a cheese sandwich, flask of tea and a run up. You put your fag on't 'orses arse ter gerrit started, then start shovelling coal inter't steam engines like fuck...stop at King's 'ead Space Station halfway there for a pint of mild, quick fag and some carrots fer't orse.
"start shovelling coal inter't steam engines like fuck...stop at King's 'ead Space Station halfway there for a pint of mild, quick fag and some carrots fer't orse."
Coal? Bluidy coal? You were lucky. All we 'ad were a couple of lumps of wood and when that run out, we 'ad ter gerrout and push.
I feel this is the approriate time for a song. No, not from brass band lad. This is proper music!
Full Steam Space Machine from YouTube
Nobody said it had to be sensible music...
For several weeks, the saplings were exposed to carefully crafted temperature, humidity, and lighting conditions they would experience in space.
What, like hard vacuum, no water, surface temperatures from 100C down to -170C, and 100x earth levels of ionising radiation?
I'd expect bamboo or Japanese knotweed to thrive in those conditions, but tea, now that surprises me.
Gah, Jake, I normally like and appreciate your posts, even if I disagree with you, but...
Starting a comment with 'methinks'?
The late lamented Clive James would not be impressed.
The word methinks has been a perfectly cromulent part of the English Language for over a thousand years, ever since you lot nicked it from the Frisians. Us bloody Yanks in turn stole it from y'all fair and square, and so I will continue to use it as I see fit, TYVM.
Methinks I'll raise one to the dearly departed Mr. James. Join me?
The late lamented Clive James would not be impressed.
Methinks the wight protests overmuch.
The blighter actually translated Dante's Comedia so one might have thought he might have tolerated a bit of methinkery.
At the time I thought rather odd in as far as I wasn't aware he had any expertise in mediaeval Italian (Tuscan) but reading his effort I learnt his missus was apparently the full bottle on the language.
"a plastic cup filled with a liquid which is almost - but not quite - entirely unlike tea." This is exactly what I had been drinking for too long, long ago. Why my then employer found it suitable to provide an Adams-designed tea machine ("freshly brewed") is beyond me.
Anyhow, if moon soil doesn't replicate my favourite Assam, I'm not interested.
Earl grey: hot. And smells like a tart’s handbag.
Curious expression and association.
Do whores' reticles differ much from the rest of womenkind's in this respect ?
Might be worth bunging a local street walker a few quid to find out although the potential contents might make one shudder.
I suppose growing stuff on the Moon and tarts is connected by the word "horticulture" and Dorothy Parker's famous example of that word's use in a sentence.
Without the regular wind & rain lashing that this planet receives the lunar regolith doesn't get all the sharp edges rounded off and that causes cell wall damage as things grow through it.
Martian regolith may well be better suited (it does get blown around) as a growing material and we won't definitively know until it's actually tried 'up there'.
Luner soil is essentially made up of tiny shards of glass. It is not physically conducive to growing plants.
Martian soil is full of perchlorates. Perchlorates are very bad for Earth-life.
While it is possible to mitigate either problem on a small scale, doing it on a large enough scale to support a self-sustaining population of humans will probably prove to be cost prohibitive.
"Luner soil is essentially made up of tiny shards of glass. It is not physically conducive to growing plants.
Martian soil is full of perchlorates. Perchlorates are very bad for Earth-life."
Another factor I didn't see discussed is if the tea is fit to drink. The plant may take up a higher amount of something bad that isn't found in high concentrations in Earthly soil. Perchlorate and other salts on Mars will be a huge issue along with an almost complete lack of Nitrogen. I believe that Nitrogen would have to be shipped to the moon as well.
I don't have enough JSC-1A stimulant to try the experiment myself, but I'm skeptical that I could just plant something in it, give it some water and the plant would grow. Some plants grown on ISS don't build a strong trunk so they are easy to damage. Pot growers that have plants indoors have fans to put mechanical stress on the plants so they'll toughen up and won't fall over since they've been bred and tricked to grow lots of big heavy buds. Something like that may have to be done for plants grown on the moon until strains that are better adapted have been selected for and plants that aren't good enough are taken out of the stock.
Yeah, they used some Lunar and Martian regolith simulant, as summarized in this 2022 overview (esp. Table 2) that inlcudes mustards and tomatoes but not tea (AFAICS) -- there was however tea (and coffee) at the Bratislava conference. ;)
Also, Kent has published some photos of the team and their plants (for the curious).
This is a big step, being able to grow plants on the moon, which will be used as a space staging ground reduces the costly need to ship oxygen from Earth, as once large enough fields are growing, they will be used for the moon base itself recycling co2 and for deep space flights and of course it has to be Real Yorkshire Tea, in a Greggs shop and not Starbucks swill !
or more properly the night, might be a problem with lunar horticulture.
Camillias are damned hard to kill but I imagine the extended lack of daylight implied by the ~29 day lunar day would probably do it.
I guess artificial lighting might substitute but sourcing and/or storing the required energy might be more trouble than it's worth. Possibly horticultural platforms orbiting the Moon might be slightly more practical.
