Space agriculture and the production of safe food in space

Tariq Cain

Today, half a century after Neil Armstrong made a small step on the moon, there are still only three human beings living in space, the crew of the International Space Station.

Today, all government agencies and businessmen are putting more realistic plans to return to the moon, even to travel to Mars. But if we plan to build colonies, we need to know how to feed ourselves there. Will the land crops grow in space? If so, will it taste different?

A harsh space
We are not suited to the thinnest atmosphere and low gravity of Mars or Moon, and without the earth's atmosphere to protect us, cosmic rays destroy the structure of our cells, including our DNA. But plants seem more solid than humans when it comes to adapting to the harshness of alien worlds.

According to NASA scientist Ray Wheeler, scientists began sending algae into space in the 1950s. Since 2015, US astronauts aboard the International Space Station have been able to enjoy the locally grown lettuce leaf, thanks to the work of Wheeler's colleague at the Kennedy Space Center, Joya Massa.

It is known that the first flower opened in space was aboard the Soviet space station "Saliot 7" in 1982, and after 30 years - in 2012 - the US astronaut Donald Petit successful experiment to plant sunflower flowers.

Attempts to plant on the International Space Station began with the beginning of the space mission in April 2014, and astronauts have already succeeded in producing fresh lettuce despite difficult conditions to complete the agriculture process as part of a broader NASA project entitled "Fiji" (VIGGIE) Aims to produce food for astronauts to provide them with food and oxygen in their future journey. This success has led scientists to intensify their food production experiments in anticipation of long-term manned missions on Mars.

The Dutch University of Fakhinningen, the world's leading in-house agriculture, has contributed through the efforts of researcher Esther Menen to design the best "recipe" for the EDEN ISS project, which aims to develop safe food production for the International Space Station (ISS) ) And future human space exploration vehicles and planetary outposts.

The project is the European model of space culture, which introduced fresh herbs and vegetables to the crew of the Neumer plant in the Antarctic throughout the last polar winter.

Soil Simulators
Plants are grown in space in a hydroponics manner, without soil, in a solution of water and nutrients. This system requires much less water and fertilizer, and crops grow three times faster than in soil.

Plants such as radish, celery and tomatoes are grown in this way, but plants usually love soil, and surface soil on Mars may provide some water. Can we grow crops directly in Mars or Moon?

As shown earlier, although the astronauts of the Apollo expedition brought about a thousand pounds of rock dust from the moon, no one used it in NASA to plant. The remaining lunar material is very precious, and difficult for NASA to distribute, and we do not have the soil of Mars.

However, a few years ago, Weigger and Minke - a colleague of Menen - decided to try to plant plants using simulations of Mars and moonlit soil.

If you are able to visit his experience, it is possible to identify some of the challenges facing plant cultivation in space and even outside the solar system, and taste its results. Whether or not we can get there, discovering how plants grow in space teaches us a lot about how to improve farming methods and mechanisms here on Earth.

The provision of fresh food for astronauts will certainly be a crucial element in the future and will help to explore and settle distant distant worlds. The development of innovations in food growing in closed loop control systems will therefore become an integral part of future space missions.