Astronaut’s meals have come a long way from the freeze-dried powders and semi-liquid pastes of decades ago – now US scientists want to grow vegetables in mini-greenhouses on the moon.
And a team of scientists says the best is yet to come for space fare. They look forward to when residents of future lunar or even Martian outposts have access to fresh vegetables.
Paragon Space development has unveiled the first step towards growing flowers – and eventually food – on the moon.
The Arizona Company, which has partnered NASA in pervious experiments on the Space shuttle and International Space Station, calls it a Lunar Oasis. This is a sealed greenhouse that looks like a bell jar encased in a 46cm tall, triangular aluminium frame. It is designed to land a laboratory plant on the lunar surface safely and protect it while it grows.
The miniature greenhouse is to be launched into space by Odyssey Moon, a participant in the Google Lunar X Prize. This competition offers US $20 million ($35.37 million) to any entrant who can launch, land and operate a rover on the lunar surface.
When it does lift off, the greenhouse will contain the seeds of brassica, which is used in the production of cooking oil and livestock feed. Since brassica goes from seed to flower in just 14 days, it can complete its life cycle in a single lunar night.
“Colonising the moon or Mars seems so far away but it is important that we do this research now, “Paragon president Jane Poynter said, “It takes a long time… to get integrated, reliable efficient systems.”
NASA has committed to two new goals – returning astronauts to the moon by 2020 and a manned mission to Mars by 2030.
“I was pleased to see this (project) put together by Paragon,” said Gene Giacomelli, a professor at the University of Arizona Department of Plant Sciences. He added: “NASA has pulled back on funding for bio-regenerative life support systems and most to the centres in the US that had been doing that sort of research have stopped.”
Giacomelli and students at the university’s Controlled Environment Agriculture Centre (CEAC) are working on their own, unfunded lunar greenhouse. The agriculture centre also makes remote operational improvements to its existing, state-of-the-art hydroponic “growth chamber” at the National Science Foundation’s new Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica.
Conditions at the South Pole, which include a high-altitude, low-air pressure environment and wind – chill factors of -100C, make the project a good analogue to conditions at a lunar outpost, Giacomelli says.
The South Pole greenhouse, now in its fifth year, allows workers living in the coldest place on Earth to eat tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, strawberries and herbs.
It produces about 27 kilos each week, enough to provide each of the 75 scientists where with two salads a day.
“This isn’t science fiction,” Giacomelli said. “We have the technology to sustain life on other planets right now, if we could get there.”
There are many challenges to growing plants in space, but the biggest is finding enough water on site to support a permanent outpost.
“Colonies need a bio-regenerative programme,” Poynter said. “A colony is there to stay.
“It’s not like you can just pack up your picnic basket and go home.”
