Think it'd be easier or harder than here on earth?
Harder. No gravity to help, and one whack and the piece would keep going until it hit another planet.
Say you were on Mars and you had a chopping block.
Baseball would be fun though, for the batter, not the outfielder :D
Harder. No gravity, and it won't burn. :D
Ya but no gravity means all those really big heavy pieces on earth are not so heavy in space
It might dry better
Harder. When you place the round or large chunk in one spot, there would be very little force making it sty there. When you swung the maul, your feet would go flying.
Moot point, there's no trees on mars ::)
Wood in space would partially split itself, no? The air molecules trapped within the wood fibers would be acted upon by the vacuum of outer space and I bet that the result would at least be some fracturing or tearing of the wood fibers as that happened. The water in wood would evaporate/boil also I'm guessing due to the lack of ambient pressure. So at least the wood would be below 20% and you could sell it on craigslist.
However, if you took gum or elm firewood into outerspace, space would get tired of trying to split it and send it back to earth as a flaming asteroid. Many people don't know that is what happened in Siberia in 1908.
The plot thickens...
Allright let's try to get a FF sponsored trip to space to solve the mystery.
A persons' muscles atrophy in space; would the fibers in a tree grown in space be similarly atrophied? If a tree grown in space is brought back to earth would it cut, split or burn the same as the same species of tree grown on Earth?
Would a tree grow in space?
I should have phrased my comment differently. Would a tree (or any plant) grown in zero gravity or in an area with significantly different gravity from the g-force on Earth have different characteristics from the same plant on Earth? If people have to grow food on extended space missions would fruits, vegetables and seeds form the same way in space as they do on Earth?
I can't believe this conversation encouraged me to google it.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/121207-plants-grow-space-station-science/
Interesting, AnthonyW...pretty silly topic, huh!
In fact, if you had low gravity but the right temperature, water and nutrients, trees (and people) would grow much larger.
how do you know? lol