Many of us would like to live on the moon, of course (Earth is so outdated now anyway), but it hasn't really been a remote prospect until now.

As part of the Google Lunar X Prize, Paragon Space Development Corporation partnered with Odyssey Moon ("a private commercial lunar enterprise") to facilitate plant life on the planet (figures Google would be the ones to take us there). What they've come up with is essentially a miniature greenhouse within which to house plant life, providing all the necessary elements to ensure its survival. The greenhouse will contain a seed, and is planned to be deployed on the planet's surface, where from there they hope it will flower.

The project is extremely significant, partly because any new life which can exist on the planet gives us a better shot, and partly because there's no, you know, oxygen or food up there, which we'd need, and these new-fangled moon plants would provide.

The operation's goal is to have the first plant on the moon by 2012.