MAX FACTS
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Gardening on the Moon
Eventually, human exploration of the moon will require plant growth systems for life support.
And, since germination is the first step in plant growth, NASA is constructing a small-technology
demonstration unit to study germination of plants in lunar gravity and radiation on the moon.
NASA plans to develop a simple, sealed-growth chamber that can support germination over a
five- to 10-day period in a spacecraft on the moon. The goal is that filter paper with dissolved
nutrients inside the container could support 100 seeds of Arabidopsis (small flowering plants
related to cabbage and mustard) a