LEDs for Space

[Thomas Kirby]

I don't know if at one time NASA studied the feasibility of growing plants in space for oxygen and food, and I don't know if this idea has been overlooked or not:

 

It is much less feasible to use any kind of fluorescent or halogen lamps in space, because of weight, power requirements, fragility, poor lifespan, and bulk. LEDs are becoming just about as power efficient, and they generate little heat, are much less bulky for the light they produce, weigh a lot less, and are very much simpler to install. They can be handwired if they have leads, soldered to circuit board material in easy to build arrays, are extremely sturdy compared to light bulbs and fluorescent tubes, and last an extremely long time per unit. Any hobbyist can build an LED lighting unit for a very low cost that is very easy to attach to almost any power source. You don't need hardware like sockets.

 

One thing occured to me while reading "Heart of the Comet" by Gregory Benford and David Brin. We seem very unlikely to need to use UV LEDs to combat growths of cometary life in ice tunnels, but if we, humanity, take on a project like that, we are likely to have short supplies of essentials like grow lights. One fact is worth thinking about. Literally a million LEDs, chip style, can be stowed in a cardboard box that one man can carry in Earth's gravity, and that's in carriers. If I'm wrong, I'm not far wrong. We might even be able to approach a million pre-mounted on panels in small arrays. Just one LED can light up a fair length of corridor enough to see where you're going. A few dozen to a few hundred can keep a few plants growing. Keeping this in mind, for anyone who works on space projects, no mission need ever be short on replacement lighting units. This could work out to the ability to easily carry a one hundred year supply.

 

Something like this could even be made into kits for growing vegetables in any convenient place in a Lunar colony using Lunar soil. Containers of lightweight plastic like they use to make those Ziploc dishes, something to hold the lighting panels up, seeds, LED panels, and if we can figure out how to make them collapsible fit the whole thing into a large manila envelope.

[insane_alien]

i believe this has already been used for experiments on plants in space. its not really a new idea.

[vrus]

I've been using a few LEDs here and there. I've also been hearing a lot about them. Could any of you please tell me how they work ?

[Klaynos]

I how this isn't the BEST source in the world but is worth a read...

 

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/led2.htm

[Thomas Kirby]

I've been using a few LEDs here and there. I've also been hearing a lot about them. Could any of you please tell me how they work ?

 

How they work, or how best to use them?

[reyam200]

i made a small array(10 x 10 white LED's) and used it to grow a plant indoors during the winter.

 

one question. how many lum's of light does the sun put out?(i think lum's is right)