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USA - MIAMI, FLORIDA: Three Local Men Hope To See Their Work On ISS
“We have been involved in this program with NASA for years, after conversations about the challenge of growing plants in space,” Lewis said. “Year One was about how to make the best use of limited growing volume on a spacecraft
July 7, 2021
Three South Florida men with diverse backgrounds — and all volunteers at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden — have teamed together in a unique collaboration to design a plant-growing method that they hope will someday be found on the International Space Station (ISS).
It’s all part of the nationwide Growing Beyond Earth Maker Challenge that calls for contestants in three team categories — High School, College and Professional — to submit designs for growing plants in space. Six finalists remain out of the 60 original submissions in year two of the three-year contest.
Jack Hahn, a photographer, heard about the program while working as a volunteer in the Fairchild Imaging Lab, was intrigued and submitted a proposal to grow “veggies in space that do well in microgravity.” His proposal impressed the judges — Dr. Gioia Massa, NASA Plant Research; Trent Smith, NASA Procurement, and Ralph Fritsche, NASA Veggie Project Manager — and he became one of the six finalists in the Professional (non-collegiate) category.
According to Dr. Carl E. Lewis, Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden director, each year of the competition is intentionally getting more challenging.
“We have been involved in this program with NASA for years, after conversations about the challenge of growing plants in space,” Lewis said. “Year One was about how to make the best use of limited growing volume on a space craft. This year is about automation. Can you set it and forget it? Next year will be about robotic planting and harvesting. We’re looking forward to seeing what you [contestants] come up with.”
After Hahn was selected for phase two of the competition, the Kendall resident realized he needed more assistance.
“I was very excited to hear that I was a finalist,” said Hahn, husband of Marjorie Hahn, executive and music director of the South Florida Youth Symphony. “But I realized that I needed to put together a team with various skill-sets and talents to go further.”
So, in May, Hahn met with the other two Fairchild volunteers who responded to an email he sent — Coconut Grove’s Nic Brunk, a molecular biologist (and crew coach for the Miami Beach Rowing Club), and Shenandoah’s Allen Diehl, a photographer with a degree in mechanical engineering.
Their goal is to grow high-density vegetables (with a high Vitamin K benefit) in a limited amount of space (a 50 cm cubic growing environment) using an autonomous system that won’t require any further human interaction (after initial seed planting) over a 30-day period.
Together, the three South Florida “scientists” have come up with an eye-catching design (with the limited constraints on size per NASA’s specs) that, well, looks like something from outer space. It has three levels (heights) for the difference phases of growth of the red romaine lettuce most competitors are using.
And, in a bold move they hope will impress the judges — and be used in future growth models in space — the threesome is growing their plants hydroponically.
“Even though you think of ‘weightlessness’ in space, weight is everything, including in the space shuttle bringing supplies to the ISS,” Brunk said. “Soil is weight and messy to deal with, especially in space.”
Diehl said, “Hydroponics is definitely the way to go. It eliminates the soil factor, and you can recycle or repurpose the water.”
Basically, the automation model the threesome has developed works by small computer, which turns the growing lights on/off, and activates fans and pumps. Additional automation to replenish the nutrient solution levels will follow.
But all three agree that the small monetary prize which awaits the winner of the NASA/Fairchild collaboration, which will be announced in July/August of this year, is not the reason for the countless hours of sometimes tedious work.
“This competition will provide NASA with valuable input and data, which will someday enable those on the International Space Station as well as Moon and Mars missions with a means of complimenting their diet while giving them something live and green to look at in a sterile environment,” Hahn said. “It will be great to know that our team had something to do with that.”
Lead photo: Jack Hahn (left) has joined with Nic Brunk (center) and Allen Diehl in the Growing Beyond Earth Maker Challenge to find effective ways to grow plants in space.
Urban Crop Solutions SpaceBakery Project Wins First Place At Global Space Exploration Conference
The winning SpaceBakery project is an interdisciplinary cooperative research project between seven partners, of whom, Urban Crop Solutions is the lead vertical farming technology and research partner
The Global Space Exploration Conference (GLEX) took place in St. Petersburg in June 2021. The conference brought together several leaders and decision-makers in the international science and space exploration community. Urban Crop Solutions and partners were selected to present two projects of the 250 that were presented during the conference. The SpaceBakery project was awarded the first-place prize.
Organised by the International Astronautical Federation (IAF) and Roscosmos (the Russian space agency responsible for space flights and aerospace research), the conference gathered several international stakeholders from the science and space exploration community, on a year which marks the 60th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s spaceflight.
The winning SpaceBakery project is an interdisciplinary cooperative research project between seven partners, of whom, Urban Crop Solutions is the lead vertical farming technology and research partner. The objective of the consortium is to develop the next generation of bread products to support future space missions and aid the long-term survival of settlers on Mars, in addition to being applicable for modern agriculture. The overall goals and objectives of the consortium were presented by the Puratos Group (Belgium), the leading commercial partner of the SpaceBakery project.
Urban Crop Solutions also presented another joint project, the ‘variable climate biosphere’ that they have designed. The variable climate biosphere is a macro life support system that aims to create the best-suited environment for humans and plants to thrive together during extended periods of isolation, either on another planet – namely, the moon and Mars – or on earth in an underground shelter. The presentation showcased the 3D renderings, as well as the results that have so far been obtained.
“Our approach to partner with ambitious global industrial groups and research institutions for controlled indoor farming solutions is finally paying off. We feel that we are at the cutting-edge with our technology, products and services in the fast-emerging urban farming industry – whether it is in space, in cities, on the surface or beneath it.” – Maarten Vandecruys, CTO and co-founder of Urban Crop Solutions
ABOUT UCS
Urban Crop Solutions is a Belgium-based pioneer in the fast-emerging technology of indoor vertical farming. It has developed over the past six years, 220+ plant growth recipes in its research centre in Waregem, Belgium. To date, UCS has delivered over 25 projects in multiple global locations. Their farms are being operated both for commercial and research purposes. Uses range from the production of leafy greens, microgreens, and herbs for food retail, service and industrial use, and scientific research across multiple institutions.
Website: www.urbancropsolutions.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/urbancropsolutions
Twitter: www.twitter.com/U_C_Solutions
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/urbancropsolutions
For more information on this press release, on Urban Crop Solutions and their products and services, or the SpaceBakery project, you may contact Maarten Vandecruys, Serge Ameye or Lucie Beckers.
Maarten Vandecruys
Founder & CTO, UCS
maarten.vandecruys@urbancropsolutions.com
Serge Ameye,
Space, Tunnels & Special Projects, UCS
serge.ameye@marsbakingsociety.space
Lucie Beckers,
Research Manager Agronomy, Puratos Group
LBeckers@puratos.com
Start of A New Series of Tests For Plant Cultivation on The Moon And Mars
The EDEN ISS greenhouse uses particularly robust varieties that were selected by the EDEN ISS Project team and from experiments at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and as part of the VEGGIE project on the ISS
MAY 4, 2021
NASA Seeds Germinate in
DLR’s EDEN ISS Greenhouse
Start of a new series of tests for plant cultivation on the Moon and Mars
Nine weeks of darkness and temperatures down to minus 50 degrees Celsius. Under these harsh conditions of Antarctica, NASA and the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) have begun a joint series of experiments on vegetable cultivation techniques for use on the Moon and Mars. Until early 2022, NASA guest scientist Jess Bunchek will research how future astronauts could grow lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, and herbs, using as little time and energy as possible.
To this end, she will be working at DLR’s EDEN ISS Antarctic greenhouse, where she will put greenhouse technologies and plant varieties to the test. She is also recording any effects the greenhouse and its yield have on the isolated hibernation crew in the perpetual ice. Bunchek is part of the 10-person overwintering crew on Neumayer Station III, operated by the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI).
First harvest – Lettuce, mustard greens, radishes and herbs
“The polar night will soon begin here on the Antarctic Ekström Ice Shelf. With the nine other members of the overwintering crew, it almost feels like we are alone on another planet,” says Bunchek. “In this hostile world it’s fascinating to see the greenery thrive without soil and under artificial light.” Bunchek is a botanist from the Kennedy Space Center, where she has primarily supported the VEGGIE project on the International Space Station (ISS) She was able to sow the first seeds in recent weeks, following a technical reconditioning of the EDEN ISS platform conducted by her and the DLR team. The first harvest, which included lettuce, mustard greens, radishes, and various herbs, followed a few days ago.
NASA seeds and new nutrient supply system
The EDEN ISS greenhouse uses particularly robust varieties that were selected by the EDEN ISS Project team and from experiments at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and as part of the VEGGIE project on the ISS. The DLR/NASA mission also aims to record and compare the growth and yield of the crop varieties under the conditions of the Antarctic greenhouse. An additional focus will be studying which microbes thrive in the greenhouse alongside the cultivated plants.
NASA will also be testing a plant watering concept in the EDEN Module that can operate in u-gravity settings, like the ISS. The system contains the water and delivers it to the plants by a passive method. “This will provide a side-by-side comparison with the aeroponically grown plants of EDEN ISS” says Ray Wheeler, plant physiologist at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. In aeroponic irrigation, the roots of the plants without soil are regularly sprayed with a nutrient solution.
Crew time – a precious commodity
Sowing, harvesting, tending, cleaning, maintaining, calibrating, repairing and conducting scientific activities. Bunchek records every second of her activities in the Antarctic greenhouse with a special time-recording eight-sided die, as crew time will be a precious commodity on future missions to the Moon and Mars. “In an initial test run of the greenhouse during the 2018 mission, we found that operations still took too much time,” explains EDEN ISS project leader Daniel Schubert from the DLR Institute of Space Systems in Bremen. “Now we are working on optimizing processes and procedures. We have learned a lot about operating a greenhouse under extreme conditions. We’re applying all this during the current joint DLR/NASA mission.” In addition to the crew’s time, the focus is on their well-being. The overwinterers regularly answer questions about their eating habits or how the plants affect their mood. “We hope to increase our understanding of having plants and fresh food for crews in remote, isolated settings like Neumayer III and ultimately for space” says Wheeler.
Eight months in isolation
On 19 January, Jess Bunchek reached the Antarctic continent on board the research vessel Polarstern. Since 19 March, the 10-person overwintering crew has been on their own at Neumayer Station III. “EDEN ISS is an asset for the crew in many ways,” says Tim Heitland, Medical Coordinator and Operations Manager at AWI. “I know from my own overwintering experience just how much you can begin to miss fresh produce. It’s not just about the taste, but also the smells, the colors, and the fascinating fact that something can grow in this inhospitable environment. That’s why there are always volunteers in the overwintering teams to help cultivate and harvest the plants.” The polar night at Neumayer Station III begins on 21 May, and the first rays of sunlight will not reach the station again until 23 July. Researchers for the summer season and new supplies will end the isolation of this year’s overwintering crew around the beginning of November.
The activities at the EDEN ISS Antarctic greenhouse can be followed on social media using the hashtag #MadeInAntarctica. The Antarctic greenhouse has Facebook and Instagram accounts, as well as a flicker image gallery. Jess Bunchek also writes about her personal experiences of the Antarctica mission in the dedicated DLR blog.
How The International Space Station Helps NASA Study Plant Growth In Space
Food for crews aboard the ISS is prepackaged, degrades, and requires resupply. But what if astronauts could grow some of their own food in microgravity?
As NASA plans long-duration missions to the Moon and Mars, a key factor is figuring out how to feed crews during their weeks, months, and even years in space.
Food for crews aboard the International Space Station is primarily prepackaged, requires regular resupply deliveries aboard cargo spacecraft, and degrades in quality and nutrition after about 18 months. But what if astronauts could grow some of their own food in microgravity? Researchers on Earth and crews aboard the International Space Station are exploring the idea by testing various crops and equipment to see if the plan could work.
NASA hopes to successfully grow fresh, pick-and-eat crops that are easy to produce and do not require a lot of extra equipment or precious electrical power. “Crews really seem to enjoy growing the food themselves,” said Howard Levine, chief scientist for NASA’s International Space Station Research Office at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. “It’s a nice reprieve from typical activities on the station, and astronauts often volunteer their free time to do it.”
To date, NASA has grown a variety of plants, including lettuces, mustard varieties, and radishes – and learned a lot about how to successfully do so in the process.
Here are seven aspects of plant growth they are studying aboard the space station:
1) Picking the right plants
What grows well on Earth may or may not do so well in space. Before sending a crop to space, scientists must identify which plants to test aboard the space station. To improve that process, NASA started a project in 2015 with the Fairchild Botanical Garden in Miami called “Growing Beyond Earth.” The program has recruited more than 230 middle and high school science classes across the U.S. to grow different seeds using special equipment. Seeds that grow well in the classrooms are then tested in a chamber at Kennedy that closely resembles the space station’s equipment. Selected seeds that do well at Kennedy are then sent to the station. How they grow in orbit can inform the selection of plants for long-duration missions only minimal crew attention.
2) Learning to garden in space
Plants need a place to grow, and NASA has tested out a number of facilities to host a microgravity garden. One way is by experimenting with the Vegetable Production System, or “Veggie,” which is a simple, low-power gardening chamber that can hold six crop plants. Seeds are grown in small fabric “pillows” placed in Veggie. Crews then look after and water the plants by hand, similar to caring for a window herb garden on Earth.
NASA is developing another system, called the Passive Orbital Nutrient Delivery System, or PONDS, to work with the Veggie platform. PONDS replaces the seed pillows with a new plant holder that automatically feeds and waters the produce, but still requires the crew to do some cultivation tasks. Research also uses a hands-off system called the Advanced Plant Habitat. This fully automated device is designed to study the physiology of how plants grow in space in ways that require only minimal crew attention.
3) The right light
The composition of light that shines on plants can affect their size, nutritional content, microbial growth, and taste. Plants particularly rely on red and blue light to grow. Researchers ran experiments aboard the space station to see how different ratios of red and blue light influenced plant development in space. The experiments showed that plants in space grow well under the same light conditions preferred by plants on Earth. While green lights are not necessary for plant growth, they are included in plant growth systems so the plants also appear similar to those grown on Earth.
4) The influence of gravity
Changes in gravity can affect how plants grow and how many crops they yield. Plants can sense gravity using a mechanism that involves changes to calcium within their cells. Astronauts recently ran experiments aboard the space station to measure how microgravity affects these calcium levels, which could offer clues for designing improved ways of growing crops for food in space.
In the PESTO experiment, crews grew wheat plants to see how microgravity may change some of their key features. They found that microgravity alters leaf development, plant cells, and the chloroplasts used in photosynthesis, but did not harm the plants overall -- in fact, wheat plants grew 10% taller compared to those on Earth.
Station crews also successfully grew two generations of mustard plants using the Advanced Astroculture chamber for an experiment that showed the change in gravity caused seeds to be smaller and secondary branches and seed pods to grow differently. Additionally, the experiment grew soybeans from seed-to-seed in space, which produced larger plants and seeds.
5) Water delivery
One significant challenge to growing plants in microgravity is providing enough water to their roots to keep them healthy without drowning the plants in too much water. Numerous experiments have tested a variety of methods to achieve this, including the new PONDS facility mentioned above and the Plant Water Management experiment. The water management study demonstrated a hydroponic method for providing water and air to the root zone to help them grow. Researchers are growing plants both aboard the space station and on Earth to compare how well they develop.
6) How old is too old?
Future space missions could go on for years, which means the seeds that astronauts bring along could be far from fresh by the time they need to plant them. On Earth, seeds have a decrease in viability and germination over time. But how do the age of seeds and long-term exposure to the spaceflight environment affect their ability to germinate and grow? To find out, in January 2021 NASA grew lettuce and seeds from the cabbage family (kale, mustard, and bok choi) that had been aboard the station for nearly three years. The results showed that while the lettuce seeds did not grow well compared to seeds that had been in space less time, the mustard seeds responded better than expected to the storage time in space.
7) The human effect
Gardens need tending, of course, which means astronauts or robots have to look after the plants that are growing. NASA studied how gardening in space could contribute to the behavior and well-being of astronauts. Many astronauts reported they found caring for the plants a fun and relaxing activity.
“Taking care of plants can also help astronauts stay in touch with the life cycles on Earth,” said Gioia Massa, a life sciences project scientist at Kennedy. Massa’s research focuses on growing plants aboard the space station.
What’s more, astronauts say the time spent gardening makes them excited to eat the fresh produce once it’s ready. The excitement motivates astronauts to creatively use the produce as ingredients in their meals, increasing their quality of life in space and boosting their morale.
For more information:
NASA
www.nasa.gov
8 Apr 2021
Space: A Hi-Tech Vegetable Garden To Grow On The Moon And At The Poles
The future is already here! This is demonstrated by Enea, which is working on a hi-tech garden to grow micro-vegetables on the moon and in extreme terrestrial environments, such as polar ones
ENEA: The Experimental Campaign Between Real And Virtual Begins
The future is already here! This is demonstrated by Enea, which is working on a hi-tech garden to grow micro-vegetables on the moon and in extreme terrestrial environments, such as polar ones. The cultivation is set up inside a special igloo greenhouse designed to withstand very low temperatures.
Luca Nardi
Simulated space missions are also contemplated, thanks to advanced immersive virtual reality techniques. These are the challenges of V-GELM (Virtual Greenhouse Experimental Lunar Module), the experimental project that kicks off in the Casaccia Research Center with the aim of developing a lunar cultivation module by combining innovative hydroponic cultivation techniques with virtual experiments to support the life of astronauts in future long-term missions. The project will be carried out by a team of Enea researchers and by students from CITERA (Centro Interdipartimentale Territorio Edilizia Restauro Ambiente) and from the Tuscia University and Sapienza University of Rome.
A virtual reconstruction of some activities
V-GELM has been selected among the best projects conducted by university teams from all over the world in the context of the IGLUNA 2020 mission of the European Space Agency (ESA), presented yesterday 09/07/2020 by the coordinator Swiss Space Center.
The project is divided into two phases: the first involved students and researchers, in collaboration with Mars Planet Society, in the architectural and functional design of the spaces simulated through immersive virtual reality technologies. The second phase will involve Hort3, the innovative Enea garden where the hydroponic cultivation of two particular varieties of radish, Daikon and Rioja, will be tested, inside a particular tent called "EGG" for its particular egg shape, designed by the University of Milan.
The EGG tent
"The virtual experiment - stresses Luca Nardi of the Enea Biotechnology Laboratory - allows you to offer to the public a realistic interactive perspective suitable for simulating the environments and the operations to be performed and also carrying out ergonomic analyzes. In this way, it is possible to identify from the beginning any critical issues and reduce the costs of developing space modules and of astronaut training times".
The module developed by Enea as part of the Hortspace project, funded by the Italian Space Agency, consists of a closed-cycle hydroponic multi-level cultivation system of one cubic meter with LED lighting where different species of micro-vegetables are grown, purposefully selected to reach the ideal growth stage for consumption within 10-15 days.
The laboratory
"It is a soilless cultivation system - explains Nardi - with the recycling of water, without the use of agrochemicals, able to guarantee the members of the crew engaged in space missions high-quality fresh food and correct nutritional intake, without forgetting the psychological benefit given by the growth of plants in confined environments - such as those of future extraterrestrial bases or in extreme environments, such as hot and cold deserts".
Training Artificial Intelligence To Track Greenhouses in Antarctica and Mars
Modern technology has long become a fixture in all spheres of human life on Earth. Reaching out to other planets is a new challenge for humankind
FEBRUARY 17, 2021
Credit: Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology
Scientists from the Skoltech Center for Computational and Data-Intensive Science and Engineering (CDISE) and the Skoltech Digital Agriculture Laboratory and their collaborators from the German Aerospace Center (DLR) have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) system that enables processing images from autonomous greenhouses, monitoring plant growth and automating the cultivation process. Their research was published in the journal IEEE Sensors.
Modern technology has long become a fixture in all spheres of human life on Earth. Reaching out to other planets is a new challenge for humankind. Since greenhouses are likely to be the only source of fresh food for Mars space crews and settlers, development of artificial intelligence (AI) and computer-vision-based technologies for plant growth automation is perceived as a priority research target. A test site is already in place for developing and testing advanced life support systems: An autonomous plant cultivation module is operating at the Antarctic Neumayer Station III near the South Pole. Right now, scientists are focusing on creating an AI system that could collect information about all the plant growth factors and seedling health and control greenhouses in autonomous mode without human involvement.
"One cannot maintain continuous communication with Neumayer III, and training computer vision models onboard requires too many resources, so we had to find a way to send a stream of plant photographs to external servers for data processing and analysis," Skoltech Ph.D. student Sergey Nesteruk explains.
As a conclusion to their research, the Skoltech team processed a collection of images from remote automated systems using their new approach based on convolutional neural networks and outperforming popular codecs by over seven times in reducing the image size without apparent quality degradation. The researchers used the information from the reconstructed images to train a computer vision algorithm which, once trained, is capable of classifying 18 plant varieties according to species at different stages of development with an accuracy of 92%. This approach makes it possible to both visually monitor the system operation and continuously gather new ML model training data in order to enhance the models' functionality.
There are plans to deploy and test the new systems right on Neumayer III, which will mark an important step towards automation of plant growing modules, thus removing yet another roadblock on the way to Mars.
Lead photo: Plant cultivation module in Antarctica. Credit: Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology
Russia Invents New Way To Grow Vegetables In SPACE
How do you grow something in space when there's no gravity, electromagnetic field or sunlight? For more than 50 years, scientists from different countries have been trying their best to solve the problem. Some experiments were even somewhat successful
RBTH
26 Dec 2020
Space wheat, peas, onions, and lettuce... dreams of planting your own food in space have taken a huge leap forward. And it's all thanks to a small step by a clever new system.
How do you grow something in space when there's no gravity, electromagnetic field or sunlight? For more than 50 years, scientists from different countries have been trying their best to solve the problem. Some experiments were even somewhat successful. But now, for the first time, we have a way to grow a large amount of vegetables in space at once.
It's all in the tubes
"A vitamin space greenhouse" is how they refer to 'Vitacikl-T' - a titanium tube setup that allows a conveyor-belt system to grow vegetables aboard the International Space Station. It was developed after Russia lost it’s own 'Lada' greenhouse in 2016: its modified version then made it into orbit, before blowing up together with the Progress spacecraft.
The construction consists of a spinning drum with six root modules. Planting takes place in the first module, followed by another in four days, and so on. In 24 days, you get a harvest in the first module, which gets collected, before the module is refilled with new seeds. The operations are performed in a cycle, one taking place every 44-66 days and, for the time being, this type of setup has been able to produce bigger and better results than any other foreign-made space gardens.
'Vitacikl-T' - Institute of Biomedical Problems (IBMP) RAS
Another invention here is the titanium porous tube system, which penetrates the artificial soil the way arteries do, in order to carry water.
"You can't just water plants in space: the stream turns into drops, flying in all directions. And if you use a capillary tube structure, the water slowly seeps through the pores, straight to the roots of the plants," says Maksim Sheverdyayev, head of the department for special non-nuclear materials at Rosatom.
Cosmonaut Sergei Volkov and the "Lada" - IBMP / Roskosmos
When there's a lack of enough moisture in the soil replacement system, a discharge occurs, which is measured by pressure sensors. When the soil becomes too dry, the computer sends more water.
For now, the plan is to only grow lettuce - whose purpose is also to add variety to the cosmonauts' space diet. But the idea for a space greenhouse should become indispensable in the future, during a potential space colonization, when the need for an autonomous closed ecosystem with water and oxygen is predicted to become especially high.
Space farm?
In actuality, Russian cosmonauts already managed to grow a lot of plants in orbit. The first cultures were sent there way back in 1960, with the second 'Sputnik' ship, together with Belka and Strelka - the two famous dogs. How did the seeds react to microgravity? Was the harvest safe for consumption? Did it affect the plants' DNA? All of these questions (and more) have led to the types of experiments today that should give us the high-tech autonomous system we'll no doubt require in the future.
'Trapezium' - Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics
The growing itself, for the time being, happens in quite a compact setup - as the one in the American segment of the ISS and - until recently - the Russian one. Talk of a mass-scale greenhouse is still just talk at this point.
"There are two ways growing can happen in zero gravity. The plants either attach to a surface, winding around it, or they tend toward some light source - it all depends on their type," cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev explains. "The plants are grown hydroponically. Horizontally attached receptacles with artificial substrate receive seeds and conditions are created for air to penetrate the greenhouse through the capsule."
Oasis - Journal of Technology-Youth, 1983
The water and nutrients are fed automatically, although, until now, some astronauts perform the procedure manually, using a syringe and tubes, straight into the substrate. The path to doing it this way was a thorny one, however.
In 1974, aboard the 'Salut-4' orbital station, there was a hydroponics setup called 'Oasis'. Cosmonaut Georgy Grechko was trying to grow peas this way. There was no soil and the peas had to grow through a soaked net. Soon after work began, huge water droplets would begin leaking from the system, with Grechko having to chase them with napkins. He ended up cutting the hose and watering manually.
Oasis-1 - Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics
However, this wasn't the only issue. In his book, 'Cosmonaut no.34', he confessed that his hatred of biology in school almost cost him the entire experiment. He thought the sprouts were getting trapped in the cloth and growing incorrectly and freed them from the net. Turned out he confused the roots with the stems.
Tsiolkovsky's space greenhouse - Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics
Despite this, the experiment was concluded successfully. The peas began their cycle - from seed to stem. But of the 36 seeds, only three grew successfully. Why? Well, the scientists thought it was down to the genetic characteristics, which depended on the Earth's orientation - geotropics: the sprout always tends toward the light and the stem in the opposite direction.
Imitating the Earth
After that factor was taken into account, the setup was modified and new seeds were sent into orbit, with success all around. But the plants wouldn't bloom - just as it happened in 1980, with orchids that had been blooming before departure to space. In several days, the flowers would fall, despite new leaves continuing to grow, as it happened with the roots. A theory then merged that the Earth's magnetic field was at play.
Oleg Artemiev / Roscosmos
The father of cosmonautics, Konstantin Tsyolkovsky, described a solution to the problem. He developed a plan to create an artificial gravitational field, involving growing the plants in a centrifuge. The practical solution already existed in 1933. The centrifuge did help: the sprouts turned according to the vector of the centrifugal force. The experiment successfully grew Arabidopsis and rockcress.
Oleg Artemiev / Roscosmos
Following the success, cosmonauts continued to take seeds into space, successfully growing onions, wheat, lettuce, cabbage and other cultures - as well as doing so in open space. In 2007-2008, there was the 'Biorisk' experiment, which involved mustard seeds, rice, tomatoes, radish, yeast, rockcress and nicandra growing for 13 months in a container aboard the ISS. The tomatoes were the only ones to perish - others made it back to Earth, preserving their freshness.
Roscosmos
Eating space-grown cultures has been allowed by law since the 1980s, when scientists first determined their safety, upon studying the effects of such a process of cultivation.
A Software Update Will Instruct Space Tomatoes To Sprout
t’s hard enough to grow tomatoes from seeds out in a sunny garden patch. To do it in sun-synchronous orbit—that is to say, in outer space—would seem that much harder. But is it?
For Humans, A Trip To The Red Planet Would Be Much
Improved With A Certain Red Fruit
Photo: DLR
This is a testbed for the Eu:CROPIS greenhouse assembly, shown here boasting a good-size plant with several substrates. The surroundings are for an earthbound test, and the plant is a dwarf “Micro-Tina” early-flowering tomato that is genetically engineered to grow in space.
It’s hard enough to grow tomatoes from seeds out in a sunny garden patch. To do it in sun-synchronous orbit—that is to say, in outer space—would seem that much harder. But is it?
That’s what plant biologists and aerospace engineers in Cologne and Bremen, Germany, are set to find out. Researchers are preparing in the next couple of weeks to send a software upload to a satellite orbiting at 575 kilometers (357 miles) above Earth. Onboard the satellite are two small greenhouses, each one bearing six tiny tomato seeds and a gardener’s measure of hope. The upload is going to tell these seeds to go ahead and try to sprout.
The experiment aims to not only grow tomatoes in space but to examine the workings of combined biological life-support systems under specific gravitational conditions, namely, those on the moon and on Mars. Eu:CROPIS, which is the name of the satellite as well as the orbital tomato-growing program, is right now spinning at a rate that generates a force equal to that of gravity on the surface of the moon.
The environment is designed to work as a closed-loop: The idea is to employ algae, lava filters, plants, and recycled human urine to create the cycle by which plants absorb nitrates and produce oxygen. Being able to accomplish all these tasks will be crucial to any long-term stay in space, be it on a moon base or a year-long flight to Mars. Any humans along for that kind of ride will be glad to get away from tinned applesauce and surely welcome fresh greens or, say, a tomato.
The German space agency DLR greenlighted Eu:CROPIS seven years ago as part of its compact satellite development program, says Hartmut Müller, a systems engineer and, until recently, project manager for Eu:CROPIS (he’s since moved on to new projects). The completed Eu:CROPIS launched nearly a year ago on top of a SpaceX rocket from Vandenberg AFB in California.
This photo was taken during the construction of the Eu:CROPIS satellite. The wiring shown here is used to control subsystems and sensors on the shell.
Photo: DLR
The satellite itself is about the size and shape of an overlarge oil drum. There are four experiments in total onboard Eu:CROPIS. There are two tomato greenhouses: one to simulate the moon, the other for Mars. The lunar experiment happens first; then the satellite will change its rotation speed for the Mars trial.
Alongside the greenhouses, each the size of a large breadbox is a small NASA experiment called PowerCell, which is a bacteria colony fed by photosynthetic microbes; the setup is examining cell transformation and protein production in bacteria naturally found in the gut and soil. There is also an experiment measuring long-term exposure to cosmic radiation.
Plant physiologist and Eu:CROPIS primary investigator Jens Hauslage is busying himself these days managing the pending software upload for the greenhouses, which he says will control the valves, pumps, heater, and lighting for irrigation and growth of the tomato plants. Before last year’s launch, the DLR sent him out into a pasture to explain on camera that when cows pee in the field, they are introducing ammonia to bacteria in the soil, which is converted to the nitrates, which feed plants. This nitrogen cycle, properly balanced, is fundamental to life.
The DLR looks to replicate this process in the little orbiting greenhouses in the spinning satellite and to do so with tomatoes, which are complex flowering fruits, in a closed-loop system. The experiment is meant to work quite simply—or as simply as any biological process can be in space.
When the software tells the greenhouse valves to open, a precious and small amount of water will dampen a substrate under the tomato seeds. The water rinses algae known as Euglena gracilis, which can grow into a photosynthetically active culture. The algae supplies oxygen into a trickle filter, which is made from porous lava rock. The filter is meant to convert urine/urea into nitrate. In this case, a synthetic urine will be used, simulating the human urine from a long-term space residency.
The system introduces urine into the filter, which converts it to nitrate until the photosynthetic oxygen production kicks in from the (hopefully, growing) tomatoes. This is the beneficial cycle by which plants ultimately absorb the nitrates they need: The algae prefer ammonia over nitrate, and so should protect the seedlings from potentially toxic ammonia levels, filtering the synthetic urine and putting this waste material to use as a nitrogen source for the plants.
Mustard greens grow in the vegetable plant chamber on the International Space Station.
Photo: NASA
Space farming has a robust history, and, experts say, a demanding future.
Soviet cosmonauts grew the first plants in space in 1982 on board the Salyut 7, nurturing a member of the mustard family. Three-plus decades on, NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) are set, in November, to grow spicy Espanola chili peppers, says Raymond Wheeler, a longtime NASA plant physiologist at the Kennedy Space Center, in Florida. The peppers would be the first edible fruit grown in space by U.S. astronauts, though joint U.S.-Russian efforts have been successful in raising greens, soybeans, and wheat. Pepper plants were launched into a two-day orbit onboard a U.S. satellite in 1967, but they were pregrown and are a whole other story.
“We’re still trying to figure out the best way to water plants in space.”—Gioia Massa, NASA
It took a long time to get even there. Raising flowering plants, like tomatoes or strawberries, is more complicated than greens. Gary Stutte, a horticulturist and space agriculture consultant—and a former NASA colleague of Wheeler’s who was principal investigator on four spaceflight experiments—worked for years during the ’90s on an ingenious earthbound program called The Breadboard Project. Researchers developed a 156-cubic-meter testbed which had a 20-square-meter area to grow plants in the simulated environment of a space colony.
Stutte says there’s much left to figure out, including how plants respond to partial gravity and how best to use new LED technologies to manage and optimize the 400- to 700-spectra wavelengths best suited for space-borne plant photosynthesis. “These different colors of light change the way the plant grows and decide whether pigments are produced, whether it’s purple or green, whether the stem is tall or short, whether the leaves are upright or not,” Stutte says.
Photo: NASA
NASA astronaut Christina Koch initiates a plant growth experiment on the International Space Station within a Veggie unit by filling the upper reservoir.
Gioia Massa, who works on the Veggie plant growth system for the ISS, says research into spectra for space plants has flowered in recent years to the point where horticulturists talk about “light recipes” for custom growth spectra and managing quality, intensity, and duration for different kinds of plants. Indeed, Eu:CROPIS will use the LEDs in the little greenhouses to try to boost the tomato seeds’ chances of success.
The vacuum of space is the harshest imaginable place for living things—the ongoing earthbound large-scale testbed for space farming, EDEN [PDF], operates out of a German station in Antarctica. Massa makes the point that it would be a pretty sad experience for a space traveler to have a plant failure on, say, day 70, and have to resort to warming up packs of processed food while they begin to plant all over again.
By learning more about plants, NASA hopes to advance long-duration space exploration, first to the moon and eventually to Mars. “We really need to learn a lot,” Massa says. “The behavior of water and gas flow changes so much in microgravity, and fluid physics is one of the most important things to test. We’re still trying to figure out the best way to water plants in space.”
They’ll want to sort that out before we get to our moon base.
This post was updated on 25 September 2019.
UC Davis Students Present Plan For Mars Greenhouse To NASA
Photo courtesy of UC Davis
Students were asked to design a greenhouse to support four astronauts over the course of a two-year stay on Mars.
April 30, 2019
Edited by Chris Manning
A student team from the UC Davis Space and Satellite Systems club was one of five university teams invited to present their plans for a Mars greenhouse at the NASA Langley Research Center on April 23rd.
“We all had an amazing experience learning from other teams’ ideas and interacting with professional engineers as well as fellow students,” said team member Lucas Brown, a freshman in aerospace engineering.
The UC Davis students entered the Martian Agricultural and Plant Sciences (MAPS) project for this year’s BIG Idea Challenge, organized by the National Institute of Aerospace in collaboration with NASA. Their goal: to design a greenhouse to support four astronauts during a two-year stay on Mars. The design needed to relate to the “Mars Ice Home” concept, an inflatable structure that would arrive on Mars before the crew and be partly assembled automatically. The walls of the ice home and greenhouse would be filled with water, frozen solid in Martian conditions, for structure and protection from radiation.
Dartmouth College placed first among the five finalists with MIT taking second place, NASA announced Wednesday. Unlike most of the other competitors, the UC Davis team was made up entirely of undergraduates, many of them freshmen and sophomores.
Developing the proposal took the team in a wide variety of directions, from soil chemistry and irrigation to interplanetary law.
“We’re all engineers, but we’re all going well outside our scope,” said team lead Duha Bader, a sophomore majoring in mechanical and aerospace engineering.
“It’s cool that it’s an intersection of agriculture and engineering — I never thought I would be studying irrigation systems,” Brown said.
The UC Davis proposal made use of Martian soil for growing plants, while the other competitors used hydroponic systems. The team assessed the pros and cons of both approaches and found that while hydroponics might be easier to set up, a soil-based greenhouse would be more resilient and have other long-term benefits for the mission beyond providing fresh food.
“There is stress relief in growing plants, it has recreational and mental benefits,” said Journey Byland, sophomore in aerospace engineering, who designed the soil-processing system.
Martian soil would be collected, sterilized with an electron beam to remove any Martian microbes — just in case they exist — and treated with water to remove perchlorates, toxic chemicals common in Martian dirt.
Growing soybeans mixed with nitrogen-fixing bacteria would enrich the soil. Plant waste would be burnt to ash and put back into the soil; earthworms (from Earth) would help mix the soil and keep it healthy.
The team considered, but rejected, using human waste to enrich the soil like fictional astronaut Mark Watney did in the novel The Martian by Andy Weir. The potential health problems are too complicated with a multi person crew, they said.
A 1967 United Nations treaty calls on member states to avoid contamination of other planets with Earth microbes, or bringing alien microbes into the Earth environment. The agreements and NASA policies stemming from the “Outer Space Treaty” mean that all the Martian soil coming into the greenhouse has to be sterilized and that at the end of the mission, the greenhouse’s plants must all be destroyed and thoroughly sterilized. Winning competitors are eligible for NASA summer internships.
Additional team members include: Audrey Chamberlin, freshman in aerospace engineering; Isabella Elliot, freshman in aerospace engineering; Jackson Liao, sophomore in aerospace engineering; Cory George, senior in aerospace engineering; and Nancy Juarez, sophomore in international agricultural development. Professor Stephen K. Robinson, chair of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and a former astronaut, was faculty advisor to the team.
Asia: Grapes On Mars? Georgia Winemakers Aiming High
Georgia is immensely proud of its ancient wine-making tradition, claiming to have been the first nation to make wine. Now it wants to be the first to grow grapes on Mars
APRIL 10, 2019
TBILISI: Georgia is immensely proud of its ancient wine-making tradition, claiming to have been the first nation to make wine. Now it wants to be the first to grow grapes on Mars.
Nestling between the Great Caucasus Mountains and the Black Sea, Georgia has a mild climate that is perfect for vineyards and has developed a thriving wine tourism industry.
Now Nikoloz Doborjginidze has co-founded a project to develop grape varieties that can be grown on Mars.
“Georgians were first winemakers on Earth and now we hope to pioneer viticulture on the planet next door,” he told AFP.
After NASA called for the public to contribute ideas for a “sustained human presence” on the Red Planet, a group of Georgian researchers and entrepreneurs got together to propel the country’s winemaking onto an interplanetary level.
Marika Tarasashvili, an astrobiologist working on a project to develop grape varieties that can be grown on Mars, works at a laboratory in Tbilisi on Feb. 26, 2019, as Georgia claiming to be the first nation to make wine thousands of years ago, now wants to be the first to grow grapes on Mars. AFP / VANO SHLAMOV
Their project is called IX Millennium — a reference to Georgia’s long history of wine-making.
Since archaeologists found traces of wine residue in ancient clay vessels, the country has boasted that it has been making wine for 8,000 years — longer than any other nation.
IX Millennium is managed by a consortium set up by the Georgian Space Research Agency, Tbilisi’s Business and Technology University, the National Museum and a company called Space Farms.
While it might seem like the stuff of science fiction, the idea of humans quaffing wine on the fourth planet from the Sun is coming closer to reality.
NASA hopes to launch a manned mission to Mars within 25 years, while billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX company has set a goal of outstripping the US space agency by a decade.
‘Breakthrough’ results
One of the scientists working on the project, astrobiologist Marika Tarasashvili, is developing bacteria that could turn Martian soil into fertile earth.
Researchers had already achieved “breakthrough” results in experiments, she said, smiling, as she gazed into a glass vial with faux-Martian soil in a cramped Tbilisi laboratory.
The scientists collected bacteria from regions of Georgia with “extreme ecosystems” such as hot sulphurous springs, then bred strains capable of living in Martian conditions, she says.
The idea is for the bacteria to transform the lifeless surface of Mars into fertile soil “on which future colonists will be able to cultivate plants,” she said.
Tarasashvili and her colleagues are also testing the skins of Georgia’s 525 indigenous grape varieties to establish which are most resistant to the high levels of ultra-violet radiation hitting the Martian surface.
Preliminary results showed that pale-skinned Rkatsiteli grapes — a popular variety that produces white wines with crisp green-apple flavours — best endures ultra-violet rays.
“In the distant future, Martian colonists will be able to grow plants directly in Martian soil,” said Tusia Garibashvili, founder of Space Farms company, part of the IX Millennium project.
“But first we need to create a model of completely controlled sustainable Martian greenhouses.”
Her company is currently building a vertical farming laboratory, which she calls “the ideal technology for Martian agriculture of the future.”
The plants will grow in a special facility located inside a trendy Tbilisi hotel, laid out in vertically stacked layers with carefully controlled temperature, light and humidity.
The next step will be to test Georgian grape varieties in a simulated Martian environment in a laboratory now under construction at the Business and Technology University.
“Plants will be subjected to sub-zero [Celsius] temperatures, high levels of radiation and carbon monoxide [and] high-altitude air pressure,” said BTU Dean Nino Enukidze.
“Martian dreams aside, our experiments are providing information that is vital as humanity confronts a multitude of environmental challenges,” said Enukidze.
“We will be able to identify and breed food crops resistant to the problems caused by global climate change.”
AFP
Urban Crop Solutions Joining Forces For 'Intergalactic Project'
Selling growing solutions so that humans on other planets will be supplied with fresh and healthy food is an ultimate dream for Urban Crop Solutions. The realization of this dream may be fast approaching thanks to a collaboration with Puratos, an international business group active in the bakery supply, pastry and chocolate raw materials industries.
This ‘intergalactic’ project was announced this weekend. Urban Crop Solutions is responsible for the engineering and the supply of the vertical farming equipment and the plant science support towards the growing of crops in difficult circumstances.
The core of the ‘Mars simulation’ installation built by Urban Crop Solutions and Puratos is a Farmflex plant grow container that serves as a biosphere: a closed environment where crops and humans live in harmony. The crops produce, in this airtight environment, the oxygen for the people who in turn produce the CO2 for feeding the crops. This installation located in Belgium is the second largest fully controlled biosphere in the world with its 225 cubic meters of magnitude. The Lunar Palace in China is the largest with 550 cubic meters.
Urban Crop Solutions’ team of plant scientists managed to reduce the regular growth period for wheat (grains) of 120 days to a mere 60 days by optimizing all controllable elements supporting plant growth in a lab environment. All this was realized with only a fraction (5%) of the water requirement compared to normal open-air conditions. No herbicides nor pesticides must be used in this controlled environment growing solution. The result being a ‘beyond organic’ natural product. Test results open huge opportunities for sustainable agriculture on earth. The controlled environment vertical farming solutions of Urban Crop Solutions make it possible to give back economically challenged large agricultural areas to mother nature. The lack of fresh and healthy food will no longer be an issue in inhospitable or very dry regions, a topic that received a lot of attention in the last couple of months.
Urban Crop Solutions is celebrating its fifth anniversary this year. In February 2016 the Flemish Minister President Geert Bourgeois inaugurated the largest automated indoor vertical farming installation of Europe. The keynote address of this event, presented by Urban Crop Solutions’ co-founder and Chairman, Frederic Bulcaen, brushed upon the topic of a dream come true when one day its vertical farming solutions would supply fresh food for citizens of planet Mars. Thanks to the cooperation with Puratos realizing this dream is approaching in a very fast way.
“Studies demonstrate that it is likely that by 2030 the first humans will land on Mars and will establish a permanent colony” says Maarten Vandecruys, co-founder and CEO of Urban Crop Solutions. “Our approach to partner with ambitious global industrial groups and research institutions for controlled indoor farming solutions is finally paying off. We feel to be at the cutting-edge with our technology, products and services in this fast-emerging industry of Urban Farming, whether it is in space, in cities, on the surface or beneath it.”
Urban Crop Solutions develops tailor-made indoor vertical farming solutions for its clients. These systems are turnkey, robotized and able to be integrated in existing production facilities or food processing units. Urban Crop Solutions has its own range of standard growing container products. Being a total solution provider, they can also supply seeds, substrates and nutrients for clients that have limited experience with (indoor) farming. Currently the company has developed plant growing recipes for more than 220 crop varieties that can be grown in closed environment vertical farms.
Some of these recipes (ranging from leafy greens, vegetables, medicinal plants to flowers) are developed exclusively for its clients by the Urban Crop Solutions team of plant scientists. With headquarters in Waregem (Belgium – Europe) and operations in Miami (Florida, US) and Osaka (Kansai, Japan) they are globally active.
For more information on this press release, on Urban Crop Solutions or on the products and services of Urban Crop Solutions you can contact Maarten Vandecruys, Co-founder and Managing Director (+32 476 37 17 33 - mava@urbancropsolutions.com), Frederic Bulcaen , Chairman (+32 496 57 83 55 -frbu@urbancropsolutions.com ) or visit our website (www.urbancropsolutions.com):
Company headquarters: Regional headquarters:
Grote Heerweg 67 800 Brickell Avenue, 1100 Suite
8791 Beveren-Leie (Waregem) Miami (FL 33131)
Belgium Florida
Europe USA
Facebook: www.facebook.com/urbancropsolutions
Twitter: www.twitter.com/U_C_Solutions
LinkedIn: bit.ly/UrbanCropSolutionsLinkedIn
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Ten-Year Anniversary of The Neumayer Station III
The scientific and political community alike stress the importance of German Antarctic research
The Antarctic is a frigid continent south of the Antarctic Circle, where researchers are the only inhabitants. Despite the hostile conditions, here the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) operates a research station where researchers live and work year round. Since 2009 the Neumayer Station III, located on the Ekström Ice Shelf on the eastern coast of the Weddell Sea, has served as the primary base of operations for German Antarctic research activities. The station crew, together with a delegation from the research and political communities, are now celebrating its ten-year anniversary.
Extreme cold, raging storms, and the seemingly never-ending Polar Night: the Antarctic is one of the most fascinating habitats on our planet. At the same time, it has a major influence on our climate. For the past ten years, the Neumayer Station III has provided vital support for German and international research projects in the Antarctic. Just a few kilometres from its two predecessors, the station was erected in the course of two consecutive Antarctic summers, and completed in early 2009. In a region that is sparsely populated, even by Antarctic standards, the station’s observatories are continuing unique time series that date as far back as the 1980s. At the same time, new research questions to investigate crop up year after year. In this regard, the station offers an essential ‘base camp’ for expeditions to the Antarctic hinterland, where e.g. the AWI’s snowcats and polar research aircraft come into play.
“The Antarctic continent is home to the Earth’s largest ice masses, and the Antarctic Ocean absorbs tremendous amounts of CO2 and heat, which is why conducting research in this region is of fundamental importance. In order to better grasp global changes, at the Neumayer Station III we gather data over extended time frames – from minute-to-minute weather observations to exploring the planet’s climatic history on the basis of ice cores. In addition, we provide support for observations of Antarctica’s diversity, from penguin colonies to the cold-water corals below the massive ice shelves,” explains AWI Director Antje Boetius.
For example, at the station’s meteorology observatory, radiosondes attached to weather balloons are launched on a regular basis to measure the temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, wind and the distribution of ozone in the atmosphere. Further focus areas include research on atmospheric chemistry, the Earth’s magnetic field, sea ice, and a colony of emperor penguins. Since 2017, under the auspices of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the EDEN-ISS greenhouse has been tested at the Neumayer Station III. The goal: to pave the way for cultivating crops in space and in regions with challenging climatic conditions. As a result, this year’s overwintering team was the first that could look forward to fresh lettuce on a regular basis. In addition, here Germany’s Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) operates one of 60 infrasound stations deployed around the globe, which serve to monitor adherence to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). The German Meteorological Service (DWD) is also represented at the station, and provides essential forecasts that help ensure researchers know when it is safe to work outside. In the region of the Antarctic known as Dronning Maud Land, the DWD also supports international partners from e.g. Russia, Norway and South Africa by providing aviation weather forecasts.
Currently, a fourteen-person delegation led by the Parliamentary State Secretary at Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), Dr Michael Meister, is taking an inspection tour of the Neumayer Station III.
“These past few days have given us the chance to see for ourselves just how necessary and relevant polar research is for everyone. We need in-depth information on polar processes in order to understand the global climate and its on-going changes, and in order to devise policy recommendations on that basis. This scientific information is an essential prerequisite for making sustainable political decisions. I’d like to thank all of the experts among the research, technical and logistics staff for the valuable work they do under these harsh conditions,” stresses Parliamentary State Secretary Meister.
“With its interdisciplinary centres and its impressive research infrastructures, Helmholtz is making an important contribution to addressing the great challenges of our time,” says Otmar D. Wiestler, President of the Helmholtz Association. “The long-term research being conducted at the Neumayer Station III in the Antarctic is a prime example. Various scientific disciplines profit from the station’s unparalleled resources, including meteorological and climate research, space research, biology, geology and many more. Ultimately, all of these fields help to preserve or enhance our natural resources. I’m grateful to have now had the opportunity to experience the work being done at this extraordinary research station first-hand.”
The Neumayer Station III: Background
For more than three-and-a-half decades, the AWI has maintained a research station staffed year-round in the Antarctic. Named in honour of the German polar researcher Georg von Neumayer, the Georg-von-Neumayer Station commenced operations in 1981. In 1992 it was replaced by the Neumayer Station, which, like its predecessor, was essentially a tubular structure. The current Neumayer Station III represents the largest and most comfortable station in the history of German Antarctic research. During the summer months, it offers accommodation for 50; as a rule, the overwintering team only consists of nine people. Unlike the majority of research stations in the Antarctic, virtually all workspaces, common rooms and supply rooms are centrally located under the same roof. In addition, both the station’s design and operation reflect the highest environmental protection standards. The energy it produces is recirculated in a closed system to the maximum extent possible, ensuring its optimal utilisation. Moreover, at the end of its service life, the entire station can be dismantled down to the last screw, so that the tracks left behind in this invaluable region are kept to a minimum.
That being said, its geographic position alone subjects the station to harsh conditions: every day, the ice shelf creeps roughly 40 centimetres toward the coast, which means there is a natural “expiry date” for the station. In addition, the very ground the station was built upon will one day calve as an iceberg – though, if the ice continues to flow at its current speed, that won’t happen for at least another 100 years. Buildings in the Antarctic also have to withstand virtually never-ending snowfall. In this regard, the Neumayer Station III is optimally adapted to its environment. Unlike its two predecessors, there’s no risk of it eventually being crushed by accumulating snow, since the entire station stands on 16 hydraulic struts, which technicians adjust at regular intervals to keep the building out of the snow. This allows it to rise in keeping with the snow cover, ensuring the platform remains at a constant height of ca. six metres above the surface. Thanks to this system, the station is bound to enjoy a far longer service life than the two stations before it – tentatively, at least until 2035.
Notes for Editors:
Your contact person is Dr Folke Mehrtens, Dept. of Communications, Alfred Wegener Institute, phone +49 (0)471 4831-2007 (e-mail: media(at)awi.de).
Printable images and a video are available in the online version of this Press Release: https://www.awi.de/en/about-us/service/press.html
The Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) conducts research in the Arctic, Antarctic and oceans of the high and mid-latitudes. It coordinates polar research in Germany and provides major infrastructure to the international scientific community, such as the research icebreaker Polarstern and stations in the Arctic and Antarctica. The Alfred Wegener Institute is one of the 19 research centres of the Helmholtz Association, the largest scientific organisation in Germany.
Weed In Space Is Going To Be A Thing Now
Jonathan Shieber@jshieber / 2018
Scientists interested in cannabis as a subject for pharmaceutical studies may find an unlikely new home for their research into the plant, its byproducts and biochemistry aboard the International Space Station.
Yes, weed is going to space thanks to the work of a small Lexington, Ky.-based startup called Space Tango.
The company makes a “clean room” laboratory in a microwave-sized box. Because space is tight on the International Space Station, companies that want to conduct experiments in microgravity have to do more with less. And Space Tango gives them a small environment in which to perform tests and monitor the results.
Using Space Tango’s “CubeLab” modules, which slot into the larger TangoLab containers, companies like Anheuser-Busch can send barley up to the space station to observe how the crop could be cultivated in environments approaching zero gravity.
Now, Space Tango is taking its own steps to develop experiments on how the zero gravity environment could affect cannabis cultivation.
Alongside two Kentucky hemp and cannabis cultivation and retail companies, Atalo Holdings, which provides hemp genetics, and Anavii Market, an online retailer of hemp-derived cannabidiol (CBD) therapeutics, Space Tango has set up its own subsidiary to research how microgravity can be used to better cultivate particular strands of hemp for medical compounds.
“For all entrepreneurial companies in this new space area everyone is trying to hone in [sic] on what is the actual business,” said co-founder and chairman Kris Kimel of Space Tango, in an interview. “We’re trying to figure out here what’s the business now… For us, the model is looking at low earth orbit to actually develop and design applications for life on earth.”
Kimel said the company now has two micro-laboratories installed on the International Space Station and has payloads launching to the space station for corporate and university customers about six times a year.
In its early stages, the company is mainly operating on existing income. “We’re able to meet our operating expenses off of revenue,” says Kimel. “Which is great for a company that is not just three years old.”
As it looks to create these kinds of joint ventures with other companies, Kimel said that additional revenue could come from a profit-sharing agreement rather than just straight contracts for services. The new subsidiaries enhance what the company sees as its broader mission, Kimel said.
“Each time a new type of physics platform has been successfully harnessed such as electromagnetism, it has led to the exponential growth of new knowledge, benefits to humankind and capital formation,” said Kimel, in a statement. “Using microgravity, we envision a future where many of the next breakthroughs in healthcare, plant biology and technology may well occur off the planet Earth.”
Industrialized hemp production and research and development into the crop was enabled four years ago with the passage of the 2014 U.S. Farm Bill. It was the first time in 70 years that new rules were enacted to promote research into applications for the hemp plant as fiber, food or medicine.
By taking the plants to space, Space Tango hopes to study whether the growth of certain strains can be better controlled in the absence of gravitational stresses on the plant’s development.
“When plants are ‘stressed,’ they pull from a genetic reservoir to produce compounds that allow them to adapt and survive,” said Dr. Joe Chappell, a member of the Space Tango Science Advisory Team who specializes in drug development and design. “Understanding how plants react in an environment where the traditional stress of gravity is removed can provide new insights into how adaptations come about and how researchers might take advantage of such changes for the discovery of new characteristics, traits, biomedical applications and efficacy.”
Founded by former NASA engineer Twyman Clements and Kimel, who was serving as the president of the nonprofit Kentucky Science and Technology Corp., Space Tango was spun up to be the for-profit arm that would commercialize experiments in space as a service for large businesses that wanted to take advantage of the unique properties of manufacturing in microgravity.
There have been few commercially viable products that have come from microgravity research or production, in part because it’s expensive to bring products from space to earth.
That’s why Space Tango has focused on drug discovery and pharmaceuticals and why the company is spinning up its independent subsidiary that will focus exclusively on cannabis. Pharmaceutical compounds are lightweight and can be profitable in production without enormous volumes.
“That’s why biomedicine is attractive,” Kimel said. “You’re dealing with products that are incredibly high value and incredibly low weight.”
NASA Is Learning The Best Way To Grow Food In Space
Can gardens help astronauts go farther?
By Sarah Scoles June 6, 2018
“Our plants aren’t looking too good,” astronaut Scott Kelly tweeted from the International Space Station on December 27, 2015. He was right: The attached picture showed four baby zinnias bathed in magenta light. Three of the four leafy stalks were discolored and curling in on themselves. The station’s garden was struggling to recover from a mold problem. It’s an issue familiar to terrestrial gardeners. And while on Earth, the problem means a trip to the local nursery for replacements, in space you can’t do that.
Space gardens will be essential someday if astronauts are to go beyond low-earth orbit or make more than a quick trip to the moon. They can't carry all the food they need.
The Voorhes
The zinnias, brightly colored flowers in the daisy family, were part of an experiment called Veggie, whose ultimate mission is to provide crews with a long-term source of food. In prior tests, astronauts had successfully harvested lettuce. The zinnias had a longer growth period—60 to 80 days—and then would bloom, producing neon-hued blossoms that look like they belong in a psychedelic corsage. They were practice for something finickier and tastier than leafy greens: tomatoes. If station crews were ever going to grow something that intricate, they needed to figure out—among other things— how to vanquish mold.
Veggie is a relatively uncomplicated way for astronauts to develop their green thumbs. “It’s a very simple system,” says Gioia Massa, one of the project’s lead scientists. “It doesn’t control much at all.” Instead, the humans do.
Space gardening will be essential someday if space travelers are to go beyond low-Earth orbit or make more than a quick trip to the moon. They can’t carry on all the food they need, and the rations they do bring will lose nutrients. So astronauts will need a replenishable stash, with extra vitamins. They’ll also require ways to make more oxygen, recycle waste, and help them not miss home so much. Space gardens can, theoretically, help accomplish all of that.
Veggie and other systems aboard the space station are helping researchers figure out how radiation and lack of gravity affect plants, how much water is Goldilocks-good, and how to deal with deplorables like mold. Just as important, scientists are learning how much work astronauts have to put in, how much work they want to put in, and how plants nourish their brains as well as their bodies.
For all its potential importance, Veggie is pretty compact. It weighs 41 pounds, just a hair less than the station’s 44-pound coffeemaker. The top—an off-white rectangular box that houses the grow lights—resembles an old VCR. From this, a curtain of clear plastic hangs to encase the 1.7-square-foot planting surface. Astronauts preset how long the lights stay on each day; how brightly they emit red light to optimize photosynthesis, and blue light to control the plants’ form and function. They can also activate a built-in fan to adjust the humidity.
The most important part of Veggie, though, is the fragile bounty it is meant to cultivate. That begins as seeds encased in little Teflon- coated Kevlar pouches. The scientists call them plant pillows. “You can think of it like a grow bag,” Massa says of these packets stuffed with seeds, water wicks, fertilizer, and soil.
People have anticipated this scenario for more than a century. In 1880, science-fiction author Percy Greg wrote Across the Zodiac, a novel about an astronaut who traveled to Mars with plants to recycle waste. Fifteen years later, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, a Russian rocket scientist, wrote Dreams of Earth and Sky, which laid out how spacefarers and flora could live together inside a closed system.
In the 1950s, green things burst from book covers and into the lab. NASA and the U.S. Air Force started growing algae to see if it could help with life support (turns out, it tasted bad, was full of indigestible cell walls, and had too much protein). Then, Soviet scientists experimented with nearly self-sufficient ecosystems in which humans survived on oxygen, water, and nutrition produced mostly within an enclosed habitat.
In the longest run, a 180-day trial inside a facility called BIOS-3, an earthbound crew got 80 percent of its food from its own wheat and vegetables. Finally, in 1982, plants in space became a reality when Soviet cosmonauts grew Arabidopsis thaliana, a flowering species related to cabbage and mustard, to maturity aboard their Salyut 7 space station. The yield was too small to be a source of food.
Liquid refreshment
Astronauts dispense precise amounts of water to the plants inside Veggie.
NASA
Around this time, in the mid-’80s, Veggie’s Massa was in middle school, and her seventh- grade teacher returned from an astroagriculture workshop at Kennedy Space Center with reams of information on the topic. Inspired, a teenage Massa kept taking ag classes as she moved on to high school, and later teamed up with her middle-school mentor for a hydroponics project.
While Massa continued her studies and self-guided experimentation, NASA began building orbital plant-growing apparatus, most notably the Biomass Production System. Designed to be used for experiments on the space station, it was a rectangle with sides each about the length of an arm. Four cube-shaped growth chambers rested like safes inside. Designed by scientists at a Wisconsin-based company, Orbitec, the Biomass Production System joined the space station in 2001. There, Brassica rapa field mustard soon sprouted tall, illuminated by plain white fluorescent light.
When researchers compared the harvest to a control plant on the ground, though, they found that the space mustard had more bacteria and fungus. “The significance of the difference is uncertain,” states NASA’s official conclusion. By which the agency meant it didn’t know why the microbes proliferated, not that their presence wasn’t important. In fact, as Veggie’s mold would show, it was critically important.
NASA retired the Biomass Production System in 2002, but Russian cosmonauts picked up where the U.S. left off. Over the decade, they successfully grew dwarf wheat, leafy mizuna, and dwarf peas. Bonus: In four successive generations of orbiting dwarf peas, the vegetables didn’t show signs of genetic messiness.
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Meanwhile Orbitec, in consultation with NASA, cultivated another plant-growing instrument. So when NASA awarded a grant in 2012 for a new space garden, the company had something to show for itself: Veggie, which, unlike its predecessor, was meant to produce food on an edible scale. Massa, by then a postdoc, tested different types of media and crops for the plant pillows. It was the kind of tinkering she’d been preparing for since she was 12. The United States’ first real space garden launched in 2014, not long after Massa advanced from her postdoc to become a Veggie project scientist at the space agency.
All went pretty well for Veggie until the flower flap. Most of its initial edible plants—a lettuce variety called Outredgeous—sprouted as they should have in 2014, and the astronauts shot them back down to Earth for testing. Massa says they’re still working on all the analyses. “But in general, the plants are pretty similar to our ground samples.” When they’re finished, they’ll know about chemical contents like antioxidants, anthocyanin (pigments), and phenolics, which protect plants against stress. Short term, the priority was mealtime: Could we have consumed the harvest? The crew, Massa, and NASA all wanted to know. Yes, it turned out, the produce was microbially safe to eat.
Kevlar-coated pouches help protect seeds from microbial contamination; fully grown Outredgeous lettuce
NASA
Still, when the astronauts planted a second set of seeds, in summer 2015, Massa ran into a new challenge: With harvest approaching, NASA had no protocol to approve the crew chowing down on the leaves of their labor. “We said, ‘We have only 28 days, and then they’re going to have to eat it,’” Massa recalls. With the clock ticking, management found a way to officially add the lettuce to the astronauts’ diet.
On August 9, Kelly snapped a picture, standing in front of the unfurling greens. His brow was furrowed, faux-serious. “Tomorrow we’ll eat the anticipated veggie harvest on @space_station!” he tweeted. “But first, lettuce take a #selfie.” Soon he crunched the harvest live on NASA TV. It might seem like no big deal, but a single leaf can make a big difference to someone who’s been eating rehydrated fare for months. During a later harvest, astronaut Peggy Whitson would use them to wrap a reconstituted lobster salad. “Even with a really good diet with hundreds of items, there’s dietary fatigue,” Massa says. “People get bored. Adding a new flavor or texture—like something crisp and juicy—could spice up your regular meal.”
That’s not the only brain boost. Sure, astronauts can gaze down at Earth and see its most beautiful spots—literally all of them—every 90 minutes. But those places are always out of reach, reminders of how far away sea level is. Having something nearby that photosynthesizes might cheer the crew. “It’s the psychological aspect of something green and growing when you’re far away from home,” Massa says.
In the next growing cycle, the astronauts fostered the ill-fated zinnias. About two weeks in, Kjell Lindgren saw the first warning signs. Water leaked from the wicks that hold the seeds. Then moisture began seeping from the infant leaves, which started to curl in on themselves. Veggie staff on the ground, in charge of the operation, decided it was time to turn the airflow fan from low to high. But an impromptu spacewalk to fix a broken robotic arm delayed the change because, in space, nothing is as simple as flicking a switch on your way out of the spaceship. While reprogramming Veggie’s settings takes only about 15 minutes, NASA prefers astronauts move anything lower priority out of the way when they have a high-priority task.
And then the leaves started to die.
That’s bad enough on its own. But, worse, dying vegetation can be a breeding ground for mold, which had somehow come to space with the astronauts and cargo. Soon, menacing white fuzz began choking the plants.
By this time, Lindgren had returned to Earth, and Kelly had taken over the garden. On December 22, with instructions from ground control, Kelly snipped away the moldy parts like bad spots from a piece of cheese, and swabbed the remaining zinnias and equipment with cleaning wipes. He left the fans on high to help dehydrate the setup.
It was a good try but not without a cost: It made the plants thirsty. Kelly relayed that to ground control and asked to water them. Sergeants who were set on sticking to the drill told Kelly it wasn’t time yet. Not till December 27. “You know, I think if we’re going to Mars, and we were growing stuff, we would be responsible for deciding when the stuff needed water,” Kelly told them, according to NASA’s write-up of the event.
Farm to table
On-Orbit Gardeners Kjell Lindgren (left) and Scott Kelly. The fast-growing salad green was the first plant to be grown, harvested, and eaten in space.
NASA
Eventually, they gave autonomy to the person who was actually next to the plants, along with one page of instructions called “The Zinnia Care Guide for the On-Orbit Gardener.”
Under the On-Orbit Gardener’s thumb, half of the zinnias revived, unfurling and growing green. NASA spun the whole thing as a positive: They now knew that crops could survive floods, drought, and disease, and that excising the problem plants and cleaning the remainder could keep the fungus from taking over.
Kelly loved the now-flourishing flowers and carried their container all over the space station for photo shoots, like those people who snap shots of themselves in Hard Rock T-shirts all over the world. “He asked if he could harvest them on Valentine’s Day,” Massa says. He’d been in space, away from everyone except his smelly crew mates for more than 300 days. NASA let him make the bouquet.
It was one of Massa’s favorite moments. “We had been a part of something that gave him pleasure,” she says.
In upcoming Veggie experiments, scientists will learn more about that part of gardening—the mental part. “We’ve heard a lot anecdotally,” Massa says, “but we’ve never been able to collect data.” They’ll also investigate how much farming crewmembers actually want to do, how much is fun versus how much is a chore, how their sense of taste changes in orbit, and which plants can survive human error (no offense, astronauts).
Veggie’s experiments will continue in tandem with those of a brand-new Type-A companion, the Advanced Plant Habitat, an 18-inch-square self-sufficient laboratory with more than 180 sensors and automated watering. Scientists can establish their variables and thus nail down the specific conditions that cultivate plants—and how those plants can cultivate humans. A temperature-control system keeps the air within 0.5°C of the thermostat setting. Sensors relay data about air temperature, light, moisture, and oxygen levels back to base. While the Advanced Plant Habitat will quantify the circumstances for successful gardening, Veggie will help qualify how—and why—humans can facilitate their own food supply. In other words, through the habitat’s tight controls, researchers can learn how to grow which plants best. Then, using those parameters, they can set up a system like Veggie that astronauts get to interact with.
Astronauts assembled the habitat over six hours in October 2017, after it rumbled into space in two shipments. The automated contraption looks like a microwave that could survive… being shot into space. Wires stream from here to there and there to here on a control panel. Red indicator lights blink next to toggle switches. And inside the plant chamber, LEDs beam from the ceiling, illuminating the plants below with concert-stage color combinations. It has red, green, and blue lights like Veggie—plus white, near-, and far-infrared ones.
Plants might also be a brain boost. "It's the psychological aspect of having something green and growing when you're far away fom home," says Massa.
The Voorhes
Robert Richter, director of environmental systems at Sierra Nevada Corporation, which acquired Orbitec in 2014, monitored its progress from the earthbound Space Station Processing Facility. He’d helped design and build the new lab, as well as Veggie and Biomass. When he started in the field, almost 20 years ago, he was a bit naive. “I thought, How hard is it to grow plants?”
He’s partly joking, of course—and he knows, now, that when you’re trying to keep the humidity level within 3 percent of a given number, when you must make and measure light and moisture, and when you maintain the temperature to a fraction of a degree, there’s a long row to hoe between growing some basil in a cup and farming lettuce in space.
The team powered up the unit in November 2017. And by February this year, test crops of Arabidopsis thaliana and dwarf wheat sprouted. Soon, they’ll begin experiments like investigating plants’ DNA and physiological changes. A lot of the previous plant research has been focused on whether things would grow at all, says Robert Morrow, Sierra Nevada Corporation’s principal scientist. Will they reproduce from generation to generation? And are they as productive in space as on the ground?
Yes, he says. Scientists are beyond those basics now. They need to dig into the dirtier details and more-complicated ecosystems. Astronauts, for instance, exhale carbon dioxide that plants can inhale. The plants then exhale oxygen, which humans can inhale. Human waste can become plant fertilizer and hydration. Nothing wasted, everything gained.
Ultimately, Morrow believes, a garden on a deep-space mission will be more like Veggie than like the Advanced Space Habitat. “It’s really not practical to put all the stuff you have in APH in a system like that,” he says. With so many sensors and tubes, lots can go mechanically wrong, and it’s easier to repair a Veggie than an APH. For now, scientists need APH to home in on optimal guidelines for plant growth and understand how leaving the planet changes them so they can instruct future astronauts how to better manage Veggie-esque systems.
Looking toward the future, Massa is interested in observing astronaut interactions with the instruments. “Do you always want to pick your ripe tomatoes, but maybe you don’t want to have to water them every other day?” she wonders. She’ll have a chance to find out because Veggie will grow its first dwarf tomatoes, a variety called Red Robin, early next year.
Other nations continue to experiment too. China, for instance, intends to send silkworms and potato seeds to the moon this year aboard its Chang’e-4 spacecraft. When the silkworms hatch, they’ll create carbon dioxide, which the potato plants will suck up and turn into oxygen, which the silkworms will then take up.
All this research doesn’t just help people above the atmosphere. Creating self-contained growth systems might help farmers on Earth grow crops year-round or foster plants with extra protein and high yield. Someday, the work will lead to gardening systems substantial—and stable—enough to support space journeyers. Then, those travelers can wrap anything they want in lettuce and crunch their way through the cosmos.
Contributing editor Sarah Scoles is the author of Making Contact: Jill Tartar and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.
This article was originally published in the Summer 2018 Life/Death issue of Popular Science.
Tags: Science gardening farming space travel Features summer 2018 Technology Space
University of Florida/IFAS Researcher To Experiment With Algae In Space
University of Florida/IFAS Researcher To Experiment With Algae In Space
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A University of Florida scientist will use the International Space Station to see if algae can help recycle carbon dioxide and eventually be used to help make plastics, resins and even food.
Initially, researchers want to improve algae’s ability to use light to capture carbon, and in turn, help support animal and plant life in space, said Mark Settles, a UF professor of horticultural sciences.
Settles will put plants on a payload bound from the Kennedy Space Center for the ISS. The launch is scheduled for June 29.
“I’ve recently become interested in applying synthetic biology to plants, particularly to understand how starch and grain-storage proteins accumulate in the cells,” said Settles, a faculty member at the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. “Corn is very hard to manipulate and takes a long time to develop improved varieties.”
“I figured I could start by working with algae and that NASA would be interested in engineering algae that could be used as food,” he said. “We are adapting algae to grow as fast they do in conventional liquid cultures on Earth.”
Among its advantages, cultivated algae could provide a system to recycle carbon dioxide and perhaps eventually provide food or a source of vitamins for crew members on long space voyages, said Settles. Previous studies show rodents and chickens eat algae, so it’s edible for humans, too, although astronauts don’t eat it yet, he said.
In conducting his month-long experiment, Settles will select algal strains that improve growth in a microgravity environment.
Algal oils also can produce fuel or be used to make plastics and resins in space, Settles said. Algae also make carotenoids and vitamins, which are important for human nutrition, Settles said. This is critical because space flight diminishes astronauts’ vision and exposes them to cosmic radiation.
“Algal carotenoids may help mitigate some of these harmful effects,” Settles said.
Settles’ next step is to extract DNA and sequence the genome of the space-selected algal strains. He and his research team also will propagate the space strains in the lab to maintain them for future space missions.
“Corn and other cereals produce a lot of plant material that is not particularly useful in space,” Settles said. “The long-term goal is to engineer algae to produce the valuable stuff without so much waste plant material.”
-30-
By: Brad Buck, 352-294-3303, bradbuck@ufl.edu
The mission of the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences is to develop knowledge relevant to agricultural, human and natural resources and to make that knowledge available to sustain and enhance the quality of human life. With more than a dozen research facilities, 67 county Extension offices, and award-winning students and faculty in the UF College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, UF/IFAS works to bring science-based solutions to the state’s agricultural and natural resources industries, and all Florida residents. Visit the UF/IFAS web site at ifas.ufl.edu and follow us on social media at @UF_IFAS.
by Brad Buck
Posted: June 13, 2018
Category: UF/IFAS
Tags: algae, astronauts, carbon dioxide, horticultural sciences department, International Space Station, Mark Settles, News, space
Plenty of Production in The Future Exploration Greenhouse on Antarctica
Plenty of Production in The Future Exploration Greenhouse on Antarctica
Published on June 19, 2018
The most important element of the EU H2020 EDEN-ISS project is the simulation of a one-year "space mission" on Antarctica, in preparation of future space missions.
The business unit Greenhouse Horticulture of Wageningen University & Research has been involved in all preparations (from the design and dimensioning of the installations and necessary resources of the Future Exploration Greenhouse, through the selection of the crops, to the preparation of a crop handling manual for Paul, the space technician whose job is to produce fresh vegetables for the benefit of the "mission" crew.
The building blocks of the greenhouse arrived at the beginning of this year on Antarctica and, after assembly and testing, first crops were sown in the second half of February. In total there are now 10 people at the German station Neumayer III, completely isolated in the Antarctic night. In his growing task, Paul is assisted by an automated system developed by the bu Greenhouse Horticulture of Wageningen University & Research especially for this purpose, based on simple and inexpensive cameras.
Components of the system are: evaluation of the growth rate, prediction of harvest time and timely detection of deviations. Only when necessary the Wageningen experts are alerted to evaluate possible actions that are discussed with Paul. In the meanwhile he has harvested almost 100 kg of fresh tomato, cucumber, lettuce, spices and radish. Go to EDEN-ISS for beautiful Antarctica images, explanation and for updates.
The EDEN-ISS Laboratory Starts Its Greenhouse Operations
The First Seedlings Have Been Planted
The EDEN-ISS Laboratory Starts Its Greenhouse Operations
Now it's getting serious: The EDEN ISS laboratory in Antarctica has been set up, the first seedlings are placed in the growth cabinets, and the majority of the team of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) is back in Germany after eight weeks of travel. For DLR scientist Paul Zabel, who will be the only member of the EDEN ISS team to stay in the Antarctic until the end of 2018, this means that wintering in the Neumayer Station III of the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) begins.
Cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers will start as the first cultivated plants on the southern-most point of the world. "Our goal is to make sure there will always be something to harvest in the coming months," explains DLR project manager Daniel Schubert. With those proceeds, the diet of the ten-man wintering crew will be supplemented
Photo: DLR German Aerospace Center
The last few weeks have been exhausting for the scientists and engineers who assembled a working greenhouse for the eternal cold of Antarctica from the delivered container parts. Minus 5 to minus 10 degrees Celsius and a decent wind made the work much more exhausting than in Bremen, where the EDEN ISS laboratory was tested for the first time. And these temperatures will drop significantly in the coming weeks.
In addition to the adverse weather conditions, however, the isolated location, which makes the delivery of fresh food impossible, brings the scenario close to a mission to Mars. With Paul Zabel, just nine overwinterers will be living in the Antarctic station over the next few months - a team on a space mission would also be small. "But that's exactly what we wanted to test - with our laboratory, under realistic environmental conditions, we want to produce space tomatoes and space lettuce in an environment like this," says Daniel Schubert from the DLR Institute of Space Systems.
Photo: DLR German Aerospace Center
From basil to lemon balm
In addition to tomatoes, cucumbers, and strawberries, the scientists are planting leafy lettuce, rucola, radishes, peppers, basil, chives, parsley, lemon balm, and mint. The plants are growing under artificial light. Instead of soil, that would have no place on a long-term space mission, a nutrient solution is feeding the cultivated vegetables and herbs. The water in this closed life support system is recycled - it will only leave the container inside the harvested greens.
"All subsystems such as lights, irrigation, air circulation system and cameras are tested and are working properly." However, the harsh environment in which the greenhouse is located has also caused some problems: the researchers had to look for a solution when condensation was precipitated in their containers. "It is just quite different if the container is in a city or in the Antarctic," says Schubert. Building the structure was troublesome. If a tool was needed, someone had to walk 400 meters, back to the Neumayer Station. Not only did all of this make for a strenuous time for DLR's team, but it also brought a wealth of experience needed for a later mission into space.
More photos and information about the project on the DLR website.
Agriculture in Space Expert: Deep Horticultural Expertise is Needed for Vertical Farming to Succeed
Dr Gary Stutte is the founder of SyNRGE, a consultancy specializing in Space Agriculture and Controlled Environment Agriculture technology. Stutte, a horticulturalist and university professor, worked at NASA for several years on a program focused on growing crops in space, resulting in some of the first research around vertical farming and LED lighting.
Agriculture in Space Expert: Deep Horticultural Expertise is Needed for Vertical Farming to Succeed
OCTOBER 12, 2017 | LOUISA BURWOOD-TAYLOR
Dr Gary Stutte is the founder of SyNRGE, a consultancy specializing in Space Agriculture and Controlled Environment Agriculture technology. Stutte, a horticulturalist and university professor, worked at NASA for several years on a program focused on growing crops in space, resulting in some of the first research around vertical farming and LED lighting.
Stutte in the Kennedy Space Center growth chamber holding leafy greens grown in self-contained ‘pillows’ (2011)
Today Stutte is actively engaged in developing ground-based applications for space technology in biosciences, protected agriculture, and commercial horticulture. He has published over 150 scientific articles on the effects of growth conditions on crops grown in closed environments, fruit production, space biology, LED lighting systems, and biological life support systems for missions to the Moon and Mars.
We caught up with Stutte ahead of his speaking slot at YFood’s London Food Tech Week at the end of the month (30 October – 3 November), to find out more about his work and thoughts on the development of the indoor agriculture startup scene globally. (Get 20% off tickets with this code! AGFN20.)
How did you come to start working at NASA on indoor agriculture?
It was a bit of luck that allowed me to transition from teaching horticulture and fruit production at a University to working on closed system crop production for NASA. I had been teaching graduate courses in horticulture when I learned of a new program at NASA, which was starting to look growing plants on long-duration space missions. NASA had started the Breadboard project at Kennedy Space Center in Florida as part of the CELSS (Controlled Ecological Life Support System) program that had the objective of demonstrating the feasibility of using higher plants as a renewable life support system for long duration space missions. When the opportunity presented itself to become involved, it was an opportunity I could not pass up.
The Biomass Production Chamber (BPC) at the Kennedy Space Center was the centerpiece of the Breadboard Project in Florida. The BPC was a large (132 m3) closed chamber had been used as a high-altitude test chamber in the Mercury and Gemini programs. The chamber was fitted with lighting, a nutrient delivery system, and air handling systems and provided 20 meters of growing area on four levels. This was one of the first examples of a vertical farm. Incidentally, this design was driven by the constraints of the volume and diminutions of the chamber, not by a desire to design a vertical farm!
Between 1988 and 1996 the chamber operated on a nearly continuous basis — over 1200 days — without any significant failures, and during that time we grew multiple crops of wheat, soybean, rice, lettuce, potatoes and tomatoes in the chamber. Corn was too high for space!
Many other crops were also tested in controlled environment chambers using hydroponic production systems as potential candidate crops for space. Criteria for selection included a short stature, high productivity, short life cycle, nutritional content: criteria nearly identical to those required for successful indoor agriculture operations on Earth.
These tests measured all inputs and outputs including transpiration rates, photosynthetic rates, yield, harvest index and nutrient demand. In addition, the production of volatile organic compounds and ethylene were monitored, as well as the dynamics of the microbial communities associated with each crop.
What were some of the main successes of the program?
The CELSS project in general, and the Breadboard project, in particular, were extremely productive, resulting in over 600 publicly available publications on all aspects of engineering, biochemistry, microbiology, and horticulture associated with controlled environment production. Three area’s I think of great importance were demonstrating the feasibility of the continuous production of crops — not just leafy greens, but tubers like potatoes and staple crops like wheat and soy — hydroponically on a continuous basis, generating detailed data on the nutrient, water, and yield potential of those crops, and pushing the limits of their bioproductivity using electric lighting, nutrient management, and CO2 enrichment.
By the end of the program, we had achieved four-to-five times the world record for field yields of wheat, twice the world record field yields for potatoes in two-thirds of the time, and we exceeded predicted yields from hydroponic lettuce production by 20%.
The data developed by that program on productivity, water use, nutrient demand, and oxygen production are still used as baseline design values for long-duration space missions, including the bases on the Moon and Mars.
What were you using technology-wise?
Lighting was provided by 96 400-W high-pressure sodium lamps in the BPC and crops were grown in recirculating nutrient film hydroponics. The nutrient balance and pH of the solution were controlled, and a number of environmental sensors were installed in the chambers. The BPC itself was designed as a closed system, so the water released by the plants through transpiration was condensed, collected and reused. The atmospheric CO2 was controlled during the day, and all systems were continuously monitored and controlled. There was also a very active resource recovery program in which nutrients from the inedible leaves and stems of crops were recovered and then returned to the plants. By careful management of the nutrient solution and water recovery system, we demonstrated the continuous production of potatoes in the closed system for 418 days in a row; that’s over a year.
There seems to be a lot of development in the lighting space. How did your use of lighting evolve during the project?
The testing began with conventional fluorescent, high-pressure sodium, and metal halide lamps. It was recognized early on that these lighting systems were not suitable for space applications. This was primarily a safety consideration: they are hot to the touch, can explode in low pressure, and contain hazardous gases. Plus, they’re made of glass, that if shattered would mean shards of glass floating around in the vehicle. They are also bulky and have a relatively short lifespan meaning we’d need a lot of replacement bulbs which use up limited storage space and crew mission time.
NASA began funding research on LEDs in the late 1980s, which resulted in the first US patents for growing plants under LEDs in 1991. Subsequently, we used LEDs to examine the effects of light quality on the size, form, and shape of plants, as well as the potential to increase the nutritional content of crops. The use of LEDs is revolutionizing indoor agriculture, and much of the critical research enabling this transformation in horticultural lighting can be clearly tracked to NASA-funded research. I was lucky to be able to participate in some of that work at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
LEDs are now being used in all the US plant growth chambers currently on the International Space Station, and the use of LEDs to alter optimize spectral quality through a crops life cycle is becoming a reality.
Do you see any big challenges in how some vertical farms are being developed today?
Controlled environment agriculture faces many challenges, but it is increasing quickly in Asia as well as North America and Europe, and it’s starting to expand into Latin America as well. Vertical farms are driven by the demand for a consistent supply of locally grown, high-quality produce that’s free from pesticides and conserves resources. Much of the growth is enabled by the availability of LED lighting, which can be significantly more efficient electrically than traditional lighting systems, and allows the lamps to be placed close to the plants. However, the challenge remains that it is hard to offset the electrical cost of running LEDs; you often need to sell produce at a big premium, and some early pioneers in the industry have learned that lesson painfully. There are now models for particular crops and markets that I certainly think can succeed. Additional challenges include humidity and temperature control in the facility, as well as excluding pests and achieving sustainability. However, these are all surmountable challenges.
Do you see challenges changing depending on location?
Each site will have its own specific set of challenges, particularly regarding the availability and cost of water, power, and labor. I think the challenge of personnel with training in horticulture is under-appreciated. Vertical farming is an information-intensive enterprise and requires an understanding and appreciation of the fact that you’re growing living things. There is a misconception that using technology to collect data and drive the production of plants makes it relatively easy to automate the production cycle. In theory, it does, but in practice, the biological variables make implementation difficult. The challenge is understanding the environment that each plant species will require; each strain or variety of lettuce, basil, or medicinal plant is a little different.
This understanding of living plants will be the knowledge base that will make or break the next generation of vertical farming facilities; how well the founders pay attention to the selection of species and cultivars and to the horticulture required in the production of plants in an indoor factory.
Have you come across many indoor agriculture operations and startups without horticulture expertise?
Some. Most entrepreneurs are visionaries and have an ideal; they have some information on crops they are growing and some sense of how to grow plants in the field. But once a crop is moved into the control environment of indoor agriculture system, the plant responses can vary greatly depending upon spectral quality, atmospheric composition, and nutrient management. Technology enables indoor agriculture to push the limits of productivity; it becomes far more critical to understand the commodity you’re working with.
Do you think you need a better horticulture understanding growing indoors than outdoors?
In many ways, yes. While indoor agriculture gives you control of the environment, there is less room for error in the decisions that are made.
Why are most vertical farms today purely focused on leafy greens?
Most of the vertical farms focus on leafy greens due to economics. Leafy greens generally have a short production cycle (28-35 days), enabling multiple harvests (9-13 per year per meter squared of production area); short stature maximizing the number of levels that can be grown per m2; have relatively modest lighting density demand (15-17 Moles per m2 day), thus minimizing KW energy required per production cycle, and essentially all of the crop is harvested and sold, minimizing harvesting and processing costs.
It’s hard to do that for wheat; typically the edible grains of wheat makes up less than 20% of a wheat plant. That means you’ve invested all that energy, light and nutrients to grow the inedible roots, leaves, and stems, only to harvest off the seeds that must be processed before they can be sold. In other words, 80% of your investment in the crops not sellable! I anticipate we will start seeing more peppers as shorter season varieties emerge that could be competitive with greenhouse-grown peppers.
I am excited to see that a greater variety of leafy greens, as well as other short cycle vegetables and medically plants produced in indoor farms, are appearing on the market.
We’re not going to feed the world with leafy greens. Are you concerned that there’s not enough research being done on other crops?
I am concerned that there is not enough research being done on other crops. That’s not to say that research is not being done, but it needs to be expanded and conducted in a systematic way to support indoor agriculture. Before I left Kennedy Space Center, our labs had tested over 25 different crops in controlled environments as potential candidate crops for space. It’s imperative to do the research on lighting, nutrient and environmental conditions for new species in vertical farms. While I don’t think that vertical farms will be providing the primary caloric needs for the world, there is certainly potential for it to be a key source of fresh produce that provides critical nutrients and phytochemicals essential to health.
Personally, I’ve yet to see a good business model that would achieve some financial sustainability for a company placing small container type farms in food deserts. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist, but I haven’t seen them. What I can envision is locating a larger scale indoor farm in the economically disadvantaged food desert, in order to stimulate a broader economic impact that could create jobs and generate income for that area. The indoor agriculture model is adaptable to becoming an engine for economic growth and food security in both rural and urban food deserts.
My concern is that many things that indoor agriculture promises are going to be very difficult to deliver, such as the replacement of imported food, fresh food for everybody in large cities, turning food deserts into oases of fresh nutrient vegetables. It is going to be very difficult to do this with the capital and operating costs involved; ultimately you have a perishable product that’s a commodity, and it’s hard to recover the cost of vegetable production unless it is performed at scale.