Astrobotany

Matthew Lehmitz

So essentially, the work involves lots of space stuff. It’s really quite fun. The focus is, of course, on putting plants in space, astrobotany.

Matthew Lehmitz

Plants are of this species. If you can kind of see it there. This is Chilancia Ionanta. Variety of bromeliad that is also an air plant, if you’re familiar with the concept at all.

Matthew Lehmitz

It basically is a plant that exists Without a root system, without actually putting down anything into a substrate. In fact, the only roots that it has, if you can kind of see on the bottom there, are essentially developed specifically for the purpose. of providing support in their arboreal habitats as they naturally grow in the tops of forest canopies in the neotropics, so basically up in the Trees that just sit there kind of gathering light and being happy and healthy, which actually works on any surface, as it turns out.

Matthew Lehmitz

You can put them on a rock and they will grow that way as long as you give them a little water and the occasional. nutrient supply. You can put them on top of this desk right here, and it will have the same basic advantageous effect. which is part of what we’re trying to gain by utilizing these particular plants.

Matthew Lehmitz

Many, or really most, vascular species that people are proposing to take to space, everything from Roses to corn has the problem that you need to have some kind of substrate to put it in. You need to keep the roots wet and you need to provide them with specific nutrients, etc. And that means you have to carry that with you. You have to carry the extra soil and materials in order to grow them. Or you have to create those somehow once you get to your target location. That’s a bit of a pain, and it’s really, really expensive given current weight requirements.

Matthew Lehmitz

So if we can obviate that and find a way to take these plants with us and use them as a baseline for developing an ecosystem or habitat, that’s great.

Matthew Lehmitz

And so the current project is based around a 3U CubeSat. Now a cube set is just what it says. It is basically box just a little larger than this Here, which is what we’re using for testing right now for some things. 10 centimeters by 10 centimeters by 30 centimeters. And it is a standard that allows us to put satellites in space much more cheaply and easily than would otherwise be the case. So once you have a basic launch for that, you can fit all of these into the same cube set. And of course, each of the units is 10 centimeters on a side, so you get something that looks about like this. Each of these is a 10 centimeter cube. They run together, and you get about that standard shape.

Matthew Lehmitz

So with that, we have about one of those cubes in order which we can put our plants here. And if you do that and you put them under artificial gravity using natural sunlight, you have a basic simulation Of what you would do for a very extreme micro-habitat situation on orbit.

Matthew Lehmitz

And what part of what makes this interesting and unique is that This is not run by Asterats. There’s no one there actually taking care of the plants, which is what we see on the International Space Station. And so the plants are more or less left to their own devices. So whatever we provided to them to grow is what they have to work with, or what we have to work with. To keep them safe and sane. And so doing that, we can automate the system somewhat and actually make it a lot easier to start building these things, not just with humans there, but also ahead of time if we wanted to. Prepare the environment for the arrival of people later.

Matthew Lehmitz

And that, in a nutshell, is the current project. There’s a lot more details, of course. We can talk about why this is valuable and the like. But as this is supposed to be somewhat interactive, we don’t want to take up too much time here. What questions do you have on that?

Speaker 2

So I’m not super familiar with air plants, but how are you planning on delivering all the nutrients they need? I guess when you leave them to their own devices?

Matthew Lehmitz

Well, essentially, we’re going to have a nutrient bath similar to the sort of thing you’d find with plant food here. And we’re going to put that into the water supply essentially that we’re going to have for the plant on orbit, and it’s going to be dispersed over time in the form gaseous form. And then eventually it’s going to pool as a liquid because we can’t avoid that entirely. So it’s basically going to be rotating around the outer edges of The container or the chamber in which the plant is going to be. And the plant is going to be slightly above this, so it isn’t sitting in a pool of water the whole time.

Speaker 3

So, how do you control the humidity for the plant? I kill air plants because it’s too dry.

Matthew Lehmitz

Yeah, they tend to not like dry environments, but currently I’m using a humidifier just for ground testing. On the satellite, we’re basically just going to have a little heater in there that’s going to keep heating up the water and trying to keep the humidity level at 100% These plants are native to the tropics in South and Central America, where humidity is really high anyway. So that’s actually how we propose to get most of the water to the plants themselves.

Speaker 2

Do they use far less water than good, I guess, conventional rooted plants or whatever?

Matthew Lehmitz

They certainly use less water than most plants, although There are plenty of root plants that also have a similar way of producing water. These are what are referred to as cam plants, which is sort of for traastolacean acid metabolism. Basically, it’s a way of reducing water consumption when they fix carbon through their respiration cycle. And it’s very common among desert plants as a way because, of course, they’re going to be the ones that have the biggest problem with this. It’s a little strange that these plants would have it because of where they live, but because they’re sitting on top of a tree and not actually on the ground or accessing water directly, they don’t have nearly as much consistent water access as other species. And so they take it up whenever it rains or whenever they get the chance, but otherwise are very good at reducing water usage. Actually, related species to these, another variety of Talansia, live in the middle of the Atacama Desert on the sand. And their only water supply is dew and mist that rolls in off the ocean.

Speaker 2

Aside from like their usefulness as air plants, what do they provide a food source? Are they like air purifying? What You know, like, is this just a test, an initial test to see if we can get these growing? Or are these plants themselves going to actually be useful for astronauts?

Matthew Lehmitz

These plants will be useful for astronauts. They actually can be eaten. They don’t taste very good, but you can do that. They make great ornamental plants, which has actually a very useful psychological effect on people in other worlds, having green things around and growing. And you can literally just stick these on the wall somewhere and let them grow. They because you can they bud off, they’re easy to reproduce and keep alive in these places, you can use them for oxygen support and Recycling. When they die, they’re going to be very valuable as basically biomass to build soils. And as baselines for ecosystems, if you want to grow grasshoppers as a meat source, for instance, you can have something like this and feed the insects And of course, once you get to waste recycling, you can simply use them as one step in that process. Yeah, there’s no reason not to use something that will be of long-term benefit, even though this is early steps where the primary goal is almost proof of concept.

Matthew Lehmitz

So we can put it up there, we can keep it safe from radiation, we can avoid getting it killed by leaking all of the air, whatever it may be. And of course, the artificial gravity will be particularly Interesting, especially since we want to do it at lunar or Martian levels to simulate the most likely early colonization habitats.

Speaker 2

What mechanism are you using for the artificial gravity?

Matthew Lehmitz

Magnetorters.

Speaker 2

Okay, that’s pretty interesting.

Matthew Lehmitz

Yeah, I’m just gonna spin it up and let it go. The whole satellite probably That’s pretty cool

Speaker 4

How long do you think it’ll be out in space?

Matthew Lehmitz

The proposed length of the project is about one year. That’s about how long we think the plant will survive, be healthy, get continue to provide stable scientific information These plants do have a 16-year life cycle, so if things go well, it could go significantly longer. The satellite’s orbit should be reasonably stable for about nine years. So we will see how long we can get. But one year is the primary goal that we’re focused on.

Speaker 4

So do they have a way to get pictures back to you of how it’s doing while it’s out there at all?

Matthew Lehmitz

Yeah, they are going to have a full suite of instruments actually. I mean, I’ve mentioned this, but we’re going to be using instruments like this. This is actually a CO2 sensor that Quite small, and we’re just going to have that sticking into the plant chamber or enabled to monitor the changes in the air chemistry throughout the entire event so that we can basically get a very good idea of how the plant is responding to its environment, how well it’s growing, what neat changes we need to make in order to keep it healthy. and just how stable an environment we can create for it. Because we, of course, we want to make it as easy as possible to maintain this over time and to see what other species we can add in future experiments.

Matthew Lehmitz

All right. So if we don’t have additional questions, then we can move on to the debate section really quick. So are there any particular topics you would be interested in on the matter? Or do we want to Or use one of the other ones that’s already listed here.

Speaker 2

I mean, I think that the idea of seeding worlds is an interesting idea.

Matthew Lehmitz

Okay. Well, we can go with that then. So in case anyone hasn’t seen it, the question is should we see life on other worlds even those we haven’t fully? Examined for existing life. And of course, you can go both ways with that.

Matthew Lehmitz

Do we want to really work? You know, how important is it that we protect life on other worlds, whether or not we know it exists, and how valuable is it to begin putting down Species on other worlds that can begin the process of what we would think of as terraforming in the long term, or even just teach us about our own life forms and see how they would survive in extreme situations.

Matthew Lehmitz

Now, I would argue that we should go ahead. I mean, you know, we haven’t had a chance to examine all of Mars, certainly, but We haven’t found anything and it’s possible that we could in the future, but we gain far more by doing good science with existing species, sending things there and Working on developing long-term habitable capacity.

Speaker 2

But like, where would you draw the line? So, if we had another, you know, you know, exoplanet or whatever, and we You know, all we knew is that it was there. Would you be willing to send the satellite there without anything, or do you just feel like the data we have on Mars already is enough?

Matthew Lehmitz

I would be willing to send it out there in a limited area and start now. I don’t think that anything we’re sending is going to take over the entire planet immediately. And especially to places we’ve been driving around for years, taking soil samples and everything else. It would be a great place to start and within limited spaces we could start seeding in various microbe species, especially some of those we’re finding in Antarctica that are surviving on virtually nothing. They’re sitting on top of ice. Or in a little bit of dead dirt and just growing in extreme cold conditions, which is about as close to Mars as you’re going to get on Earth. We may have to do some genetic engineering, that’s fine. I won’t know until we try these things. And they’ve already been trying it with certain species in orbit, and they’ve been doing fairly well. It would be very interesting to see in particular how they do in the thin Martian atmosphere, which of course in enclosed environments we’ve tested on Earth has turned out well.

Speaker 2

They can put up with the thin atmosphere?

Matthew Lehmitz

Yes. Given certain conditions, most notably that they get to be under the soil.

Speaker 2

Okay, that’s a little bit bizarre, but okay.

Speaker 2

Does the I know the soil on Mars is pretty sharp and jagged. Is that would that mess with the plants at all?

Matthew Lehmitz

It would mess with plants, sure. What I’m talking about right now are microorganisms.

Speaker 2

Oh, okay.

Matthew Lehmitz

So yes, we haven’t found plants that can deal with that. Nothing multicellular has been able to put up with some of these conditions.

Speaker 2

That’s what I thought you were saying. Sorry.

Matthew Lehmitz

Well, I guess there are some that are multicellular, but very small. The water bears, I guess they’re called, were doing fairly well. In some of these simulations, they survived. They didn’t breed very much, but they survived.

Speaker 2

What would the real advantages of even sending microbes to Mars be? Like. I feel like terraforming, if we were going to do it, would we probably need to do some pretty crazy stuff like nuking the poles or putting up Greenhouse gas factories, but like putting microbes on there, especially the ones that can survive in those kinds of conditions, are they going to even affect anything much? Or is it just an interesting experiment?

Matthew Lehmitz

Well, at first it is an interesting experiment. We have to be able to keep the things alive. And that’s certainly something that’s going to be a significant challenge coming from any perspective that you want. Getting started now, though, gives us a lot of experimental data on how you keep these things alive, not just on Mars, but on other worlds is going forward.

Matthew Lehmitz

It doesn’t terraform the entire planet. I don’t think that’s within the range of technology any time soon. but it can begin to alter the especially the soil chemistry of local areas. And if we’re looking at colonies and building in those areas actually having functional soils instead of just dead dirt and inert material is going to be very useful in the long term. So, they can begin to alter that space in a much more usable fashion.

Matthew Lehmitz

And, of course, once we have those there, and if we can keep them alive in the soil, they’ll also be producing usable gases. Now, those aren’t going to be able to rev as before, change the entire planet. What they will be able to do and what will be valuable is if we build around them, they’re going to be generating gases that we can capture. Basically, you’re doing in situ biological construction. And that’s going to be extremely useful long before you can put up any factories or significant technological developments. That’s one of the huge advantages of building these things in the first place.

Matthew Lehmitz

Is that we have everything we need to support human life, colonization, everything else here on Earth in the huge biosphere that we call this planet. What we’re working on right now, and what the long-term goal here is, to pare all of this down to a scale where we can build it and keep it all alive and self-sustaining and understand it. So we can take it with us and also use those lessons to better manage the Earth’s biosystem and to put it into deserts and other places where otherwise we would not be able to. Sustain livable cases like we’re in the middle of Antarctica, where we have to shift everything in right now.

Matthew Lehmitz

All right, well, thanks everybody. Hope you enjoyed it. We didn’t quite get to the other interactive section, but Maybe next time. And if you want to discuss this further, I’m always happy to do it. And I would like to suggest that if we ever get the chance, the MTA should get a greenhouse so we can. Play with these things and actually do some of these life elements that we’re talking about on hand and get more people involved.

Speaker 5

Certainly, we could use some great transhumanist projects, and that would be a relatively easy one to get going on. Aye, he in the other room.