Growth area for palms as UAE sends seeds into space
▶ Plutocrats with more money than they know what to do with are going galactic, writes Robert Matthews
The palm is one of the UAE’s most prized trees. Its fruit fed generations of people for thousands of years, while its trunk and leaves were used to build homes.
Now the palm is blasting off on a new chapter as the UAE is to send its seeds into orbit on the International Space Station.
The seeds will lift off from Cape Canaveral in Florida on Wednesday at 6.24pm [2.24am on Thursday UAE time] on a Falcon 9 rocket. Operated by SpaceX – the company founded by billionaire Elon Musk – the rocket will carry the Dragon cargo capsule to the ISS.
This is about the same time the Earth’s rotation brings Cape Canaveral under the ISS’s orbital path. If all goes well, it will dock at the weekend.
The seeds will spend two months onboard and then be returned to Earth for planting here. Any changes the seeds underwent while in orbit will be important to researchers.
The project will study how the seeds react to being in space, their ability to absorb water in a weightless environment, and the potential for planting them in martian environments.
The UAE has said it will build a human settlement on Mars by 2117 and is working on replicating these conditions back on Earth through its “Mars Scientific City”, which is under construction near Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre in Dubai. It is also hoped the research with the palm seeds will benefit these aims.
“We are experimenting on palm seeds as they are usually planted in circumstances similar to the martian environment,” said Rashid Al Zaabi, the project supervisor. “Palm trees are deeply rooted in the UAE’s heritage and are the oldest trees in the region. Should this experiment succeed, palm trees and the UAE name will be linked to great success in the space sector,” he said.
The research also aims to shed light on the challenges of food security in space. It will tackle some of the issues that we face on Earth, especially in countries with harsh weather conditions and water scarcity such as the UAE.
This experiment forms a part of the “palm in space” project that explores the potential of planting palms on Mars. The UAE Space Agency launched the project as part of its activities to recognise UAE Founding Father Sheikh Zayed’s passion for planting palm trees.
Emirates Post shipped the seeds to the site and NanoRacks – a private space company – is responsible for conducting the experiments on the ISS.
UAE University is also involved in the project.
When Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin ended their historic moonwalk 50 years ago yesterday, many people considered it to be the start of a new era in exploration.
In reality, it was the start of a half-century of stasis. Even as
Apollo 11 returned home, Nasa’s budget was being cut. For most US politicians – including president John F Kennedy, who launched the space programme in 1961 – the goal was always to beat the Russians.
The triumph of Apollo 11 was a brief moment of pride for a nation beset by troubles at home and abroad, such as civil unrest, inner-city decay and the Vietnam War.
By the time Apollo 17 commander Gene Cernan stepped off the Moon in December 1972, public interest in “Moon shots” had evaporated. But now a race to return to the lunar surface is under way, and this time it’s not only the superpowers. Private companies are also getting in on the act.
Unsurprisingly, Nasa still has the most advanced plans. In May, it unveiled the Artemis programme, with the goal of sending astronauts back to our nearest neighbour by 2024.
The centrepiece of the project is the Orion spacecraft. The 21st century equivalent of the
Apollo capsule, the Orion is designed to take four astronauts.
Propelling Orion is the task of
the prosaically named Space Launch System, a launch vehicle as big as the Saturn V booster that took Apollo spacecraft to the Moon. So far, so familiar. But the Artemis programme is not simply intended to rekindle Nasa’s glory days. It’s about using the Moon as a stepping stone to Mars.
Meanwhile, the UAE has also set its eyes on the Red Planet. With plans to land a probe on Mars in two years, the UAE’s long-term intention is to establish the first human colony on the Red Planet in 2117.
The US programme also calls for the construction of a space station orbiting the Moon. Known as Gateway, this will be the place where astronauts transfer to a lander for descent to the lunar surface, and one day perhaps begin their long mission to Mars.
Even for Nasa, getting all this ready for launch within the next five years is ambitious. Since the end of the Space Shuttle programme in 2011, Nasa has lacked the means to send astronauts into orbit.
The SLS is already behind schedule and over budget, Gateway is barely started and the lander is still stuck on the drawing board.
But the biggest pressure is coming from an unusual source: the White House. After decades of empty rhetoric, the Trump administration has suddenly become a champion of space exploration.
Part of the reason seems to be a bid to rekindle national pride – witness the pointed references to China’s programme, which includes building a manned base on the Moon by 2030. Russia has similar plans.
Yet US Congress seems in no hurry to bankroll what looks a lot like a vanity project of a president in search of a legacy. The 2024 deadline coincides with the end of Mr Trump’s second term, should he win one.
Nasa finds itself caught between a capricious president and a very tight deadline. US Vice President Mike Pence has put the agency on notice, effectively saying that if it fails to meet the deadline, it can expect serious consequences.
The strain is showing. This month, Nasa’s head of manned space exploration was ousted over how to meet the deadline.
But if Nasa isn’t up to the job, who is? Once the preserve of superpowers, space exploration has attracted the interest of billionaires such as Sir Richard Branson and Elon Musk. And Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and the richest person in the world, has unveiled plans to meet the 2024 deadline.
In May, Mr Bezos revealed a full-sized mock-up of Blue
Moon, a spacecraft he says is all set to carry astronauts to the lunar surface.
Exactly how it would get to the Moon in the first place is unclear, prompting rival tech billionaire and space enthusiast Mr Musk to tweet: “Oh, stop teasing, Jeff”, in response to the mock-up of Blue Moon.
Yet Mr Bezos’s project could be exactly what Nasa needs, by providing a lander for its teetering Artemis programme. Mr Musk, meanwhile, is keeping his eyes on a bigger prize, with his SpaceX company developing a booster capable of taking astronauts to Mars.
While the race to return to the Moon is captivating, the rush is disturbing. The two most memorable events of the post-Apollo era are the space shuttle disasters of Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003. Both were the result of putting budgets before safety.
Those vying to return to the Moon should be given the time and resources to repeat the triumphs of the Apollo era, not the tragedies that followed.
Many of the films marking the 50th anniversary of the first Moon landing have retold the gripping story of how Armstrong and Aldrin nearly ran out of fuel and crashed searching for a safe landing place. What is less well known is why they were put in harm’s way.
The astronauts also faced disaster after leaving the Moon 50 years ago. As with the landing, Apollo 11’s engineers tried to think of everything that could go wrong. To minimise the risk of engine failure, they chose “hypergolic” fuels that ignited on contact with each other, eliminating the need for an ignition system.
But while preparing for take-off, Aldrin noticed a vital engine circuit breaker on the control panel had snapped off.
Aldrin informed mission control, then tried to find a solution. He found a pen could press the circuit breaker in, but it wasn’t clear that was the right thing to do. Fortunately, mission control told him it was, and the Lunar Module left the Moon, with Aldrin’s pen jammed into the panel.
Had the circuit breaker needed pulling out rather than pressed in, Armstrong and Aldrin may have been stranded.
Decades later it was revealed Nasa had prepared for this eventuality. President at the time Richard Nixon would broadcast a eulogy that ended: “Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man’s search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts.
“For every human being who looks up at the Moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind.”