With the long missions that are being prepared on the Moon or even on Mars, the question arises of how we could grow plants in space.
The French start-up Interstellar Lab wants to be on the spot with its BioPod.
From its offices in Ivry-sur-Seine, the start-up presented a first copy of this controlled environment agriculture module on Tuesday evening.
Not quite yet the lunar BioPod that Interstellar Lab is working on with NASA, and which could be ready around 2027.
But Interstellar Lab does not intend to wait five years to put the first BioPods into service, nor does it have Space as its only horizon.
On Earth too, the copy presented on Tuesday evening could prove useful.
Should we believe it?
Have you seen
Alone on Mars
?
In this Ridley Scott film released in 2015, Mark Watney, played by Matt Damon, finds himself stuck on the red planet for several years before the arrival of the next manned mission.
A botanist by training, the astronaut then began to cultivate, with the means at hand, potatoes inside the only habitat available, a dome designed to ensure the survival of six people for thirty days.
If he manages, no doubt the astronaut would have had an easier life with a "BioPod" on hand.
In the long term, it is in any case in Space, to support the life of astronauts embarked on long missions on the Moon or Mars, that Interstellar Lab best imagines its agriculture module in a controlled environment.
Hermetically closed and autonomous
Tuesday evening, from its offices in Ivry-sur-Seine, the French start-up presented its first BioPod in an American show.
Mounted on feet - "which allows it to be easily installed without any foundation", specifies Barbara Bebilvisi, founder and president of Interstellar Lab -, the module, all in ellipse, is 7 meters high by 10 long and 6 wide.
Its base, at least that of this first copy, is made of composite materials, “the same, more or less, as those used for the hulls of boats”, we specify at Interstellar Lab.
The rest is made of an inflatable and transparent Ethylene tetrafuloroethylene (ETFE) membrane.
It is through her that we have a glimpse of what is going on inside.
Cultures take place on several floors, on 55 m² and in an automated and controlled environment.
Until being able to reproduce the climate of a region very different from that where the BioPod is installed.
And in the bins, no land.
"The roots are exposed and sprayed with a solution of water and nutrients."
Everything is hermetically sealed and operates independently.
The BioPod captures CO2 in the surrounding environment to put it at the service of plant growth.
As for water, "everything that is not used by the plant is recovered, treated and put back into the circuit", explains Valentin Feist, communications manager at Interstellar Lab.
There remains the electricity supply, an axis on which the start-up continues to work.
"To date, the BioPod is connected to the electricity grid, but we are working on a system that will make it autonomous from this point of view too, with portable and low-carbon energy sources".
A lunar BioPod by 2027?
Is this the BioPod that Interstellar Lab hopes to see one day take off for the Moon?
"It will look quite like it," says Barbara Bebilvisi in any case, specifying that there is still a lot of work to adapt it to the spatial constraints.
She mentions a contract that would bind Interstellar Lab to NASA over the next five years in order to build this Lunar BioPod.
But without going into details.
"This will be the subject of another announcement, rather in November," she says.
Alexis Paillet, from Cnes, the French space agency, where he is head of the Spaceship FR project, which aims to prepare human and robotic space exploration, is not aware of this contract, even if he knows that Barbara Bellivisi has many connections in the United States.
“But like many other space companies which also work on these questions of the culture of living things in space and participate in the challenges launched by NASA on the subject”.
As for whether Interstellar Lab has taken the lead with its BioPod, Alexis Pailler, again, tempers.
“This first version does not take spatial constraints into account,” he says.
We are already incapable of sending this type of module into space.
The design needs to be reviewed as well.
One of the constraints of growing on the Moon is to protect yourself from radiation.
It is then impossible to have a module with a transparent membrane.
»
Earth before Space
In short, there is still work and surely for more than five years.
“But it's normal, continues Alexis Paille.
The reflection is just beginning and the projects, of Interstellar as of its competitors, are still immature.
It is unlikely that these culture modules will be needed on the Moon or Mars before 2035."
In the meantime, Barbara Bellivisi turns to Earth, where she believes that her BioPods can also be of great use.
The president of Interstellar then lists the limits of the current global agricultural system.
Its greenhouse gas emissions (about 23% of global emissions), the surfaces it uses (40% of the planet's land), its significant consumption of fresh water, etc.
These modules would promise to avoid some of these impacts.
The recycling of water and the capture of C02 - one ton on average per year per year - are not the only advantages that Interstellar Lab highlights.
“It also means increases in agricultural yield, less surface area used, no pollution…, boasts Barbara Bellivisi.
And it can be deployed anywhere and quickly.
There remains the question of the expected product volumes: “About five tonnes per year on average per BioPod”, slips Barabara Bellivisi.
Not enough to replace crops in the open fields.
But that's not the goal.
"We will never use a Biopode to produce salad in France", she illustrates.
Ten BioPods coming in 2023
On the other hand, Interstellar Lab has identified scenarios where its modules could prove useful.
Including with a view to producing food "where the soil is too damaged or where there is a lack of space", begins Barabara Bellivisi.
Interstellar Lab is also considering the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries, sectors that use many natural ingredients, including plants that grow far from their laboratories.
Among the twelve plants already in the start-up's catalog is the Madagascar periwinkle, grown in tropical and subtropical regions "and which contains two molecules used in the chemotherapeutic treatment of many cancers", indicates Barbara Bellivisi.
Finally, Interstellar Lab does not forget scientific research,
In short, there would be plenty to do.
Barbara Bellivisi says she already has 200 BioPod pre-orders.
“We will build ten more in 2023, but the idea is to be able to produce 100 per year very quickly”.
This is the entire economic model of Interstellar Lab: sell as many BioPods as possible to “terrestrial” customers to continue dreaming of Space.
But there again, Alexis Paillet asks to see.
"This BioPod is very designer, but is not so different from what Agricool (another French start-up) was doing by cultivating in converted maritime containers", he points out.
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