1113-BiologistsReport

Science Report

11/13/2014

Cyprien Verseux

Today was the last sampling EVA. Even though sampling in spacesuit was awkward and time- consuming in the beginning, habits and automatisms are quickly acquired and I can now collect samples almost as fast as when wearing regular clothes.

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Biologists' Report

11/13/2014

Vincent W. Coljee, Carmel Johnston

The Greenhab was much warmer today, even though it became cloudy in the later morning. The seedlings are going well and the chard is taking of in the conditions where we have seen germination. It is nice to see the difference between chard and radish. Chard often has more than one start in them and we are getting twins, triplets and sometimes even quintuplets, while radishes are almost uniformly a single sprout. Yesterday was so chilly, there was little water evaporation thus we didn't water many of the conditions. We watered most of the chard conditions today except for those in boiled regolith. There is yet to be a germination to be seen in those two conditions.

The radishes are doing well and we have had over 80% germination by now and even have one condition which has 100% germination and first leaf. Today we decided that since we won't be able to finish this experiment at MDRS and we would like to continue to take measurements for a period longer than 2 weeks, that Carmel will take these experiments with her to her greenhouse in Montana.

We are making preparations to do followup experiments in Watertown, MA where Mount Auburn Cemetery, which has beautiful new greenhouses with great climate control, has offered to work with us on this project.