China’s Space Survival Experiment to Continue Studying Plants

Four Chinese volunteers who have been living inside a sealed space capsule in south China’s Guangdong Province testing technologies to support China’s future deep-space exploration projects are set to complete their 180-day survival experiment on Wednesday. However, experts say the experiment in Shenzhen City will carry on for a further month, with the plants used in the capsule continually surveyed for data collecting purposes. The key aim for volunteers in the survival experiment has been to focus on the regeneration of food in the controlled eco-system, which has relied on growing and maintaining a large number of plants inside the capsule. A total of 25 different plants, including wheat, soybeans, potatoes, and tomatoes, were planted in four of the eight compartments of the sealed experiment capsule, which have provided abundant food for the volunteers living there. “This is plant capsule IV. We have been growing cherry tomatoes and strawberries in it. The cher