[SpaceProgram] Fwd: Space Farmers: LEDs As Key To NASA's Permanent Lunar Life Support - Forbes

[cole santos]

LED's are more expensive than florescents...and that is after order of
magnitude reductions in cost over the last few years. I found some vendors
in china for LED lights. Florescent technology requires bulb changes every
6 months to a year, this makes it unworkable for space, but good for earth
testing. LED research on optimal spectrum for algae growth is an
open research field. Another problem is the design for my algae reactors
needs lights that are 360, but leds are about 130 deg. a bi directional
light would cost a lot more due to custom nature of such a light, another
option is to just stack 2 lights back to back... but now you've doubled you
costs and lighting is more that 50% of the total cost.

On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 10:25 AM, Jerry Isdale <isdale at gmail.com> wrote:

> Growing in space requires light. Space stations may be able to orient
> themselves for full time growing but Colonies on moons, etc will need some
> power source for when their rotation takes them into night (moon night = 2
> weeks).
>
> This article talks about using LEDs powered from a small nuclear power
> source, similar to that powering the Curiosity Rover.
>
>
> http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucedorminey/2012/08/31/space-farmers-leds-as-key-to-nasas-permanent-lunar-life-support/
>
> Jerry Isdale
> isdale at gmail.com
>
>
>
>
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>
>
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