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NASA ISS Space

Space Food From Space Farms 168

Modern Farmer magazine has an article about NASA's efforts into growing food in space, a slow, difficult process that's nonetheless necessary if humanity is to have any significant presence away from Earth's surface. Quoting: "This December, NASA plans to launch a set of Kevlar pillow-packs, filled with a material akin to kitty litter, functioning as planters for six romaine lettuce plants. The burgundy-hued lettuce (NASA favors the 'Outredgeous' strain) will be grown under bright-pink LED lights, ready to harvest after just 28 days. NASA has a long history of testing plant growth in space, but the goals have been largely academic. Experiments have included figuring out the effects of zero-gravity on plant growth, testing quick-grow sprouts on shuttle missions and assessing the viability of different kinds of artificial light. But [the Vegetable Production System] is NASA's first attempt to grow produce that could actually sustain space travelers. Naturally, the dream is to create a regenerative growth system, so food could be continually grown on the space station — or, potentially, on moon colonies or Mars. ... Plant size is a vital calculation in determining what to grow on the space station, where every square foot is carefully allotted. Harvest time is also of extreme importance; the program wants to maximize growth cycles within each crew’s (on average) six-month stay."
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Space Food From Space Farms

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  • Wasted effort (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 11, 2013 @08:17AM (#44817893)

    I think it's a waste of time trying to solve issues of maintaining a biosphere in space, when a push into space will be much easier after we've reached the Singularity: machine bodies don't need food, air or water.

  • Re:oxigen (Score:5, Interesting)

    by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Wednesday September 11, 2013 @08:47AM (#44818047) Homepage Journal

    Not yet. Eventually, yes. They could grow basil onboard the station. Basil respirates all night (baby) and it's edible and has a ton of health benefits, so it's a logical choice.

    However, it makes less than no sense to grow in a soil-like medium. They should be using aeroponics. Growing in any solid medium at all is just fucking stupid, because it's unnecessary mass.

The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and to watch someone else doing it wrong, without commenting. -- T.H. White

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