Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Notes for today

Been reading up over the last month & am more convinced fiber cannabis cultivation is vital to human expansion throughout the solar system.

But there's the reality of the situation. Long term human habitation off- world is decades away, and I harbor no illusions that I may live long enough to see it, let alone hop a flight & go there myself.

It's going to require dedicated highly technical people to even develop the technology to make this work. I'm no rocket scientist, but I'm beginning to get the idea.

Case in point. Any delevopment of large scale cultivation equipment will at one point require product testing. To do so in the USA may be considered illegal, even though the use if the technology is not even for this planet.

A possible solution: Test systems with a fiber cannabis simulant.
Another solution: test using low-THC (fiber) cannabis in a country that is more open to such development. For example, the EU subsidise hemp growers, and are agressively active in space botanical research. So are the Russians & the Japanese.

On the topic of space botany: just what are the effects of microgravity on germination of low-THC cannabis sativa seeds? That's not something you can pull off the web or read in High Times. Nor can you take as truth data collated from research on other plants that have been previously observed in microgravity.

Somebody is going to have to actually do this. Whether or not the Americans will allow such basic research be done on the ISS is another matter. It may require the contsruction of an independent on-orbit automated satellite specifically designed to observe germination, using privately owned launch facilities.

But will the Americans see that as an act of "astro-narco-terrorism"?

Next time I'll clarify why I'm so concerned about the American governmnet's reaction to this research.