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Gardening in Space
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Message 1.Â
Posted by amorphophallus (U4267234) on Sunday, 16th July 2006
Dear all,
Has anyone seen the film which I think is called Silent Running? It was all about an Eden Project looking sort of space ship travelling through the galaxy? I think Bruce Derne is the main actor.
Well, in relation to that, I'd like to get a rough ball park figure as to how many other zero G type horticulture/space movies or general info you may know of? Its an interesting concept which is not offered on NVQ level one ( unless I was off sick that day) and I would like to know more.
Its funny. Going back to the point about the film: I don't recall the Bruce Derne's character being called Tim Smitt.
Any help would be appreciated -
Message 2
Posted by U4299637 (U4299637) on Sunday, 16th July 2006
Hi Mr A!
Nice to see your 'new life' leads you back to the board!
That's just luck to catch you like this...
I've seen the film too. I could never remember its title, and always ask people if they'd seen the 'botanists in space' film.
I was once lucky enough to study with a Japanese lady who was obsessed with growing Brassicas in zero G... I think she is now defending her doctorate in 'Thermal Protection for Sprouts Re-entering Earth's Gravity'. Reminiscent of the heady days of Collin Clubbe's early brainstorming sessions, I'm sure you'll agree.
Does this mean the Tim Smit will go mad and kill his colleagues at Eden, leaving his friendly robots to take care of the plants?
That give me an idea – I'm sure I've an NVQ I workbook somewhere...
GM -
Message 3
Posted by daddiesgarden (U3990430) on Sunday, 16th July 2006
Don't know if its related, but I seem to remember seeing a report on Newsround with John Craven (many years ago), about astronauts growing tomatoes and climbing beans on the Mirr Space Station to see what happened.
Its only a vauge memory though -
Message 4
Posted by Margi (U2334861) on Sunday, 16th July 2006
Hi
It's one of my favourite films EVER - plants and space in one film, and cute robots too... just wonderful!!!
Margi x -
Message 5
Posted by 1stClassAlan (U2459016) on Sunday, 16th July 2006
The film is very, very dated now - and I could say from the day it was made but that might be a little cruel because it was ground breaking - ha ha!
However, plants do not like zero gravity - everything about them likes a bit upness and downess and it's gravity that gives them the clue which is which.
If you ever see maristem culture laboratories the originating "callous" is agitated to disociate the tissues which then grow into a ball rather than a shoot - these are then cut into many small pieces to aid mass propagation.
The Americans invested a vast sum into an Earth bound "Eden Project" which was sealed up with volunteer people in it ( can't say if the plants volunteered or were forced ) but it failed miserably when they ran out of oxygen after only a few months. -
Message 6
Posted by 1stClassAlan (U2459016) on Sunday, 16th July 2006
Oh yes and while we're on the subject of zero gravity - even Startrek has someone enter an off line space craft wearing magnetic boots before he switches the artificial gravity equipment on.
Well I never - ferrous spaceships eh? They're mostly made from Aluminium - non-magnetic. Inkamel ( posh stainless steel ) for bits in the engines.
Any physist will tell you if you get a spaceship to accelerate at a constant 1G you can use the wall behind the engine as the floor and walk about on it normally. Now 1G is rather limiting if you want to whiz about the universe as they do on Star Trek in one episode because the crew would resemble pink yoghurt. -
Message 7
Posted by U4299637 (U4299637) on Monday, 17th July 2006
the crew would resemble pink yoghurtÂ
Wow, I think we've found the right person to write the NVQ 'Underpinning Knowledge' if it doesn't exist yet!
Yes, the lack of Geotropism is a problem. In my 1979 edition of "The Star Wars Question and Answer Book About Space" C3PO told me that there would be huge donut-like spinning space stations in the 1990s. They make their own gravity, so tomatoes would grow ok! What's your opinion on those 1stClassAlan? – Has Tim Smit keep those a secret too?
It seems to me from watching Logan's Run the other night and remembering Battlestar Galactica, that they only have funky looking interior plant displays. You know, in their futuristic looking cities... They have those self-watering jobs with LECA (Lightweight Expanded Clay Aggregate for the non-NVQed amongst us) at the bottom.
The lack of seeing futuristic gardeners does keep me awake at night. Will the City and Guilds be defunct too? Does this make my NVQ Level II Interior Landscape Management worth it in the long run? I've been kind of regretting the time I wasted studying towards it since 1997... It least I know what LECA stands for
GM
PS has anyone visited the Ewok Village at Alnwick Castle? or is it just me who sees the resemblance?! -
Message 8
Posted by daddiesgarden (U3990430) on Monday, 17th July 2006
SCi Fi & Gardening...
Have I died and gone to heaven? -
Message 9
Posted by William (U2169036) on Monday, 17th July 2006
Have you tried growing Rocket?
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Message 10
Posted by grove (U4593582) on Monday, 17th July 2006
top film!
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Message 11
Posted by sweetleaf (U3262132) on Monday, 17th July 2006
Every bit of sci-fi I`ve ever read seems to include the idea that plants will be essential air-scrubbers on long flights as the air quality would suffer very quickly, and there would have to be recycling of waste so what better way than to use it to grow plants? Also its not as if there would be a handy supermarket for food - a vegetarian crew would seem to be neccessary, plus all the water would have to be re-cycled ad infinitum........ I love this sci-fi stuff, Allotments in space....
Sweetleaf -
Message 12
Posted by William (U2169036) on Tuesday, 18th July 2006
Fly traps from Venus
Compost from Earth
Junipers from Jupiter
Pears from Pluto
And manure from ......
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Message 13
Posted by U4299637 (U4299637) on Tuesday, 18th July 2006
Hey Sweetleaf,
Take care on your lunar allotment! One snag on a bamboo cane and your space suit would be split...
Pink yoghurt time again!
Practice safe gardening – always use a cane-cap!
GM
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Message 14
Posted by sweetleaf (U3262132) on Tuesday, 18th July 2006
Gartenmeister, just a thought, why would we need canes without gravity, would the plants even need them ? and how big would the marrows/cucumbers get in low/ no gravity?
Scientists reckon we humans would become tall skinny creatures with little muscle, who would not be able to return to earth as gravity would crush us. High grav would turn us into squat mesomorph (sp) types with the strength of superman and no neck!
Thinking about this for the first time in several years -would we even recognise these "new humans" as the same species or would we get an entirely new form of racism ?
Sweetleaf -
Message 15
Posted by U4299637 (U4299637) on Tuesday, 18th July 2006
would we even recognise these "new humans" as the same speciesÂ
Oh God!
What 'native flora' would *they* need... Oh no, I feel a poet is writing something up as we speak!
I'm off to think about zero G cucurbits... This may take some imagination!
GM -
Message 16
Posted by sweetleaf (U3262132) on Tuesday, 18th July 2006
zero G bindweed, mares tail etc....
sweetleaf -
Message 17
Posted by sweetleaf (U3262132) on Tuesday, 18th July 2006
Forgot to include this!
sweetleaf -
Message 18
Posted by U4299637 (U4299637) on Tuesday, 18th July 2006
Great link Sweetleaf!
Combined with a rotting pair of astronaut's under-crackers and Russian lav-paper, no wonder the poor plants were confused!
Re: the cucurbits, I've decided that Ecballium elaterium (squirting cucumbers) should be banned from space flight for safety reason! Shame really, coz they're good fun in the garden!
'To boldly grow...' etc.
GM -
Message 19
Posted by sweetleaf (U3262132) on Tuesday, 18th July 2006
PML!
sweetleaf -
Message 20
Posted by 1stClassAlan (U2459016) on Tuesday, 18th July 2006
Talking about the "us and them" angle of a new breed of space human - I once read a very good story of some archelogists finding a spaceship half buried in the south American jungle - lo and behold some of the occupants, poor jelly like creature were still hanging around to give the folks a hard time - or so you are lead to believe because as it turns out - WE ARE THE ALIENS!
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Message 21
Posted by U4299637 (U4299637) on Friday, 21st July 2006
WE ARE THE ALIENS!Â
Shock!
Hey, Alan, you might know about this one... I was told by a very respectful academic (gurgling slightly), that the Earth was sterile of life until a Martian (not Marvin) meteorite hit the Earth 'a long time ago, in a galaxy... blah blah'. The meteorite had little bits of 'life' attached to it, and it spread life on Earth 'as we know it'!.. Earth being a 'seed-bed' for life... Very horticultural!
This is explained by 'our' requirements of Molybdenum even though it's quite rare on Earth and very common on Mars. or something...
Anyone know any more about that one?
GM -
Message 22
Posted by Margi (U2334861) on Friday, 21st July 2006
Isn't it a theory called Panspermia - the seeding of life all over the universe from one source...?
<argi x -
Message 23
Posted by Dame Wombat (U2332024) on Friday, 21st July 2006
I think it is in a Dan Brown novel.
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Message 24
Posted by Margi (U2334861) on Friday, 21st July 2006
Yes, Wombat - it is in Deception Point, but like much of Dan Brown's writing I believe it's an adaptation of earlier stuff rather than the formation of an original theory...
Margi x -
Message 25
Posted by Dame Wombat (U2332024) on Friday, 21st July 2006
That's the one - title slipped my mind. Poor old Dan Brown, he isn't given much credit for originality, is he?
Stinking rich though. I bet he could go to Tatton and buy all the summer houses and water features that his heart desired. sigh... -
Message 26
Posted by Margi (U2334861) on Friday, 21st July 2006
You're probably right - did you see that one up on stilts with just pillars with flimsy curtains between? I bet that would catch the breeze... Is Dan Brown married????
Margi x -
Message 27
Posted by sweetleaf (U3262132) on Friday, 21st July 2006
Panspermia is a theory that has its basis in some scientific evidence, including the fact that some bacteria can survive 25 million years without metabolism of any kind and survive radiation levels such as have never been measured on earth!
Wow! I wonder if domestos would kill those....
sweetleaf -
Message 28
Posted by U4299637 (U4299637) on Friday, 21st July 2006
Thank you Ladies! (Sorry if incorrect... all the names sound female to me)
I don't think my lecturer would have gurgled his with through a Dan Brown novel, and I certainly haven't. I'd have to track down my course notes to find what the molybdenum fact was... Shame they're in a different country at the mo! Good excuse
I believed the chap completely as his son was a world famous trance dj/band member in the 90s... Top class.
So, if life came from a chunk of cosmic ice, what will happen with the jettisoned, cotyledon-stained pants from those space stations? Does that still count as 'blue ice'?! Could an astrophysicist's 'discharge' seed new life somewhere in the cosmos...
perhaps better not to think of that.
GM -
Message 29
Posted by sweetleaf (U3262132) on Friday, 21st July 2006
GM a whole planets ecosystem could develop from those pants, and if preserved could become proof to the denizens of such a planet re the existence of a deity with dirty habits ....3 days in the same pants yuk!
Sweetleaf -
Message 30
Posted by U4299637 (U4299637) on Friday, 21st July 2006
"... and on the fourth day, he created the sun, moon, stars and change his pants..."
GM -
Message 31
Posted by 1stClassAlan (U2459016) on Friday, 21st July 2006
There's a theory that all Dan Brown novels started off from a piece of paper thrown through one his windows wrapped around a brick - it was a page torn from Issac Asimov's biography and the rest is history.
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Message 32
Posted by U4299637 (U4299637) on Thursday, 27th July 2006
I know this is slightly off topic, but has anyone got a cultural control tip for Triffids?
No, not Iris 'Triffid' (who'd name a cultivar like that! Seriously...), but the BIG ones! I have a problem with them up-rooting themselves and chasing me around the garden.
Crivens!
GM -
Message 33
Posted by sweetleaf (U3262132) on Thursday, 27th July 2006
Wasn`t that a salt water spray GM? sea water was used in the book to kill them off, which was handy, as 2/3rds of the planet is covered in it.But if you are seeing Triffids dont you think its time you changed your medication
If only it worked on bindweed...
Sweetleaf -
Message 34
Posted by Obelixx (U2157162) on Thursday, 27th July 2006
Try this GM - - and there's plenty more on google. Fascinating stuff. never heard of it before.
Re Dan Brown - I'm currently reading the alleged source book for the Da Vinci Code which is convoluted but fascinating especially as it seems the Priory of Sion was begun by a chap from just up the road - Godfroi de Bouillon in what is now the Belgian Ardennes.
Love all the sci-fi stuff. Why did the Beeb take Star Trek and all its offspring off along with Roswell High and anything else remotely alien? Perhaps they've decided Monty Don is not of this earth either and are quietly working up to ditching GW too after a long slow death. -
Message 35
Posted by Rhoda Dendron (U2176380) on Friday, 28th July 2006
Now sweetleaf
Was it seawater in the book that killed them off? Or was that the film. THe film ended in a lighthouse with the triffids being sprayed with seawater and dying (as I remember). The book - didn't everyone move to the Isle of Wight and I'm not sure what happened after that if anything
Rhoda
Ps Now I need to know -
Message 36
Posted by sweetleaf (U3262132) on Friday, 28th July 2006
Nipping to the library tommorrow, Rhoda, now youve got me wondering, (I read that book in secret, aged about 8 or 9),saw the film years later.
My parents actually banned me from the library with my schools agreement...actually it was their idea.
They said I READ too much!
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Message 37
Posted by Rhoda Dendron (U2176380) on Friday, 28th July 2006
Sweetleaf - I'm truly shocked!!!! Surely no-one can read too much. I loved libraries as a child and there were some very good ones in Swansea. We changed books at least once a week and I always found it really exciting. I always remember meal times with all the family reading at the table and I've always liked to read whilst I eat since then.
Rhoda -
Message 38
Posted by sweetleaf (U3262132) on Friday, 28th July 2006
Rhoda, I would have loved to have been in your family, all the trouble started when my "reading age" was measured in primary school and they couldnt find a word I couldnt read, so couldnt set a "reading age" because Id gone off the scale. For some reason they decided that I was too solitary and they stopped me from reading, it got so bad I would crane my neck to read posters... like a heroin addict with no drugs!
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Message 39
Posted by Margi (U2334861) on Friday, 28th July 2006
I can remember us all sitting round the breakfast table when I was a kid, each reading a cereal packet because we weren't supposed to read at the table... and I haven't stopped yet!
Margi x -
Message 40
Posted by U4299637 (U4299637) on Friday, 28th July 2006
Oh no! Sorry Sweetleaf, but I now have visions of a Mekon-like child going cold-turkey... What have I started?!
GM -
Message 41
Posted by sweetleaf (U3262132) on Saturday, 29th July 2006
Dont worry GM, like any addict I found ways to disappear to feed my reading addiction, my favourite ploy was climbing up an ancient cherry tree, where the leaves totally hid me, and sitting in the crook of a branch to read. I left books up there in a plastic bag, tied to the branches, where they remained dry till I could escape again!
These days I have no problem at all with finding a place to read, but the time...now, thats another matter.
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Message 42
Posted by 1stClassAlan (U2459016) on Sunday, 30th July 2006
When you consider the lifestyles of some of our real world plants and insects - who needs Sci-Fi ?
If you actually bother to analyse The Alien for instance, the spacetravellers discover eggs that have laid ( no pun intended ) undisturbed for so long that the crashed spaceship above them has fossilised! Of course, in true Sci-Fi manner an egg immediately responds by hatching a legged larva that can not only exist in a primordial atmosphere but can burn through spacesuit visors ( built for a human ) yet leave the face of the unfortunate untouched - while doing evil work to his innards.
Now for a supposedly inteligent lifeform, this seems a tad haphazard way of replicating to me. Here, I'm leaving out the fact that The Alien was "invented" by a scientist as the projected end result of one of evolution's presumed dead ends but the film people seem confused whether it should be a hive building insect or a reptile!
Check out the life cycle of an Icnuemann or the Bilhertzia bugs - truly amazing.
Books have longer and one's own imagination to fill out the plots whereas films have to present you with a sensational image - which has brought us to our present pretty pass where C.G.I. in all its glorious detail has taken over everything. -
Message 43
Posted by Rhoda Dendron (U2176380) on Sunday, 30th July 2006
Uh?
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Message 44
Posted by U4299637 (U4299637) on Sunday, 30th July 2006
I know what you mean Alan...
Last weekend at an evening picnic I witnessed a dragonfly (or similar. In Germany they have these brutish, big continental things!) getting attacked in-flight by two wasps. The poor thing landed on my rucksack, being the highest thing in the freshly cut meadow and snuffed it as the wasps ate its head off! Yuck! Now how can a bit of CGI compare to that?!
So how come Captain Kirk always landed on planets with polystyrene-light rocks (hyper-tufa?) and never once made a rock garden?
...and how come Dr Who always appeared somewhere resembling a disused welsh slate quarry every week (budgetary restrictions I know ) with not a plant in sight? Incidentally, he could have found a British endemic or two there if he'd trained K9 a bit better
Perhaps the Sci-fi authors of this world have their heads in the clouds too much too care about humble terrestrial life
I guess the Triffids might be as close as we can get???
GM -
Message 45
Posted by sweetleaf (U3262132) on Monday, 31st July 2006
To Alan and GM (yes both) the creature in the "Alien" had its mouthparts modelled on the Dragonfly! All of the dragonfly family have modified mouthparts which behave in the same way as the "alien" creature, sci-fi authors and creature designers dont really have to travel far to find examples of "alien" life. Its breeding arrangements, (apart from the facehugger bit) are modelled on the capsid wasp I believe, which hatches out inside its living victim and eats its way out.There are also some flies who do the same to us, not sure but they may be "tetse" flies..please correct me if Im wrong.
I know what you mean about popular sci-fi films not having much truck with plants, two examples which come to mind are Quatermass... you know, the one where a returning spaceman is transformed into an alien plant-man who eats meat (people) and the "red weed" from war of the worlds. Undersea plants do give sci-fi writers a bit more scope, but its hard to find anything alien enough to build a plot around in the modern world, without getting a microscope out.
There is one author that comes to mind, Anne McCaffrey, who looks deeply at the "flora and fauna" on the planets that her characters live on, or visit, I recommend you check out her work and see what you think.... books Im afraid, not films.
Sweetleaf -
Message 46
Posted by 1stClassAlan (U2459016) on Monday, 31st July 2006
Wie Getes Gartenmeister? Interesting Dragonfly story - were they really wasps or may be hornets? Our English green (darter?) dragonflies hunt wasps as their staple food and would make short work of even a two pronged attack.
Leaving aside Captain Kirk who habitually abandoned his ship to go dallying on shoreparties - I liked the idea of Earthsearch ( and others) of a TerraForming Desk - a sort of transporter for unwanted geographical features! When you come to think of it once you've invented on of these - who needs weapons - when you could just terraform someone's country/planet out of existance.
Dr Who was often recorded in a nearby disused chalk pit - recently my daughter phoned to tell me to quickly catch Ross Kemp and his merry Ultimate Forces blaze away at foreign enemies surrounded by Ragwort and Rosebay Willowherb in the same place.
If you consider how a fungus spore can land on a leaf and send out a phyllum to find a stoma and thus invade the living plant tissue - who needs aliens! -
Message 47
Posted by 1stClassAlan (U2459016) on Monday, 31st July 2006
Hi Sweetleaf - some of old Quatermass was quite good but ruined by budget restrictions. A later film - I think called simply "IT" Had some folk find a flying saucer under ice at one of the poles. Naturally they melted it out and woke up the "thing" inside who was a thinking plant with some extraordinary morphology - I thought bracken was bad enough!
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Message 48
Posted by Rhoda Dendron (U2176380) on Monday, 31st July 2006
Wasn't there an evil plant in Little Shop of Horrors?
Sorry 1stClass I didn't realise how seriously you were all taking this. I once commented on the character Natasha Yarg in an email and was immediately deluged by horrified trekkies telling me it was Yar. When I tried to argue that it was a silent 'g' nobody was at all impressed.
Anyway I can remember Quatermass on my parents old black and white tv and I was terrified and had to hide under the table. The same thing happened when Johnny Morris came on zoo time. I also once rode in a dalek at an Ideal Ö÷²¥´óÐã Exhibition.
Rhoda -
Message 49
Posted by U4299637 (U4299637) on Monday, 31st July 2006
Hi Alan,
Mir geht's gut, danke! Und Dir?
You've just reminded me! I went to some 'B Movies' at the Barbican Centre Cinema (the little upstairs one) a few years back and was pleased to get a ticket for "The Thing" as the DVD was a few years later. It turned out that the film was "The Thing" aka "The Thing from Another World" from the fifties... But it was still an entertaining film. It had the same plot as the later Kurt Russell version, but the monster was a 'man' in a big spacesuit (as I recall).
The scientists thaw it out in their basecamp and 'surprise'! It starts killing them (whatever will they think of next)! They manage to chop a bit off it, stick it under the microscope and declare... (Here's a bit from a fan site: )
They bring the arm inside and run tests on it and determine that the creature is more of a vegetable than an animal. It has no veins or muscle and it has seed pods under its claws. Carrington loves the idea; a vegetable has no emotions to cloud its judgment making it "our superior in everyway."Â
I totally recommend it. It's on par with the original "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman" or "The Incredible Shrinking Man", but more botanical...
GM -
Message 50
Posted by Dame Wombat (U2332024) on Monday, 31st July 2006
I also once rode in a dalek at an Ideal Ö÷²¥´óÐã Exhibition.Â
Just out of curiosity: What sort of ideal home needs a dalek? Was it recently? Because I imagine they are pretty scary now they can fly
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