Now it is possible to grow plants in space - Crops grown in asteroid soil could sustain vast human population off-planet.
So if you want to grow plants in space and want to start a space farm, you need to search for an asteroid. There is enough fertilizer around the solar system to grow vegetables for future generations of space colonies. Researchers have already began to grow edible plants in space. Asteroids are a hot topic now with the launch of Japan's Hayabusa 2 spacecraft on 3rd December, 2014. This spacecraft aims to return a sample from carbon-rich asteroid 1999 JU3.
Astronauts are now spending longer time in space with first crew to spend a full year onboard the International Space Station due to launch in 2015. Longer human missions in future will require the company of plants both in terms of providing food as well psychological comfort to them. Mr. Bratislav Stankovic at the University of Information Science and Technology in Ohrid, Macedonia and his team is working on experiments to grow mini farms on the ISS and is one of the first to grow plants in space.
Nearly every space shuttle flight from 1980s and 1990s have carried out experimental plant payloads but plants struggled in micro gravity. The plants displayed strange genetic mutations, grew in undesirable shapes and seeds did not germinate or grow well.
But now Dr. Stankovic and his team have made a capsule which enabled two generations of seeds to successfully grow on International Space Station. The capsule tightly controlled soil moisture, light, humidity, air temperature and levels of carbon dioxide and ethylene - a hormone plants release into the air when they begin to open. A mesh held down a base of fertilized gravel in which the plants could spread the roots. Once the system was installed by the astronauts, the system was remote controlled and monitored from the University of Wisconsin. They grew a small edible flowering plant called Arabidopsis thaliana.
The plants produced seeds and also 92% of them germinated successfully. Some of these plants were grown on the ISS and others back on Earth. There was little difference between the two. The space seeds had their protein stores packed a little differently and the plants' branches grew in slightly different directions. But these are small details, Stankovic says. "It is likely that the previous failed attempts had to do with inadequate control of the growth environment," he says. "Microgravity per se is not a limiting factor."
For more details, please read the article on growing farms in space
So if you want to grow plants in space and want to start a space farm, you need to search for an asteroid. There is enough fertilizer around the solar system to grow vegetables for future generations of space colonies. Researchers have already began to grow edible plants in space. Asteroids are a hot topic now with the launch of Japan's Hayabusa 2 spacecraft on 3rd December, 2014. This spacecraft aims to return a sample from carbon-rich asteroid 1999 JU3.
Astronauts are now spending longer time in space with first crew to spend a full year onboard the International Space Station due to launch in 2015. Longer human missions in future will require the company of plants both in terms of providing food as well psychological comfort to them. Mr. Bratislav Stankovic at the University of Information Science and Technology in Ohrid, Macedonia and his team is working on experiments to grow mini farms on the ISS and is one of the first to grow plants in space.
Nearly every space shuttle flight from 1980s and 1990s have carried out experimental plant payloads but plants struggled in micro gravity. The plants displayed strange genetic mutations, grew in undesirable shapes and seeds did not germinate or grow well.
But now Dr. Stankovic and his team have made a capsule which enabled two generations of seeds to successfully grow on International Space Station. The capsule tightly controlled soil moisture, light, humidity, air temperature and levels of carbon dioxide and ethylene - a hormone plants release into the air when they begin to open. A mesh held down a base of fertilized gravel in which the plants could spread the roots. Once the system was installed by the astronauts, the system was remote controlled and monitored from the University of Wisconsin. They grew a small edible flowering plant called Arabidopsis thaliana.
The plants produced seeds and also 92% of them germinated successfully. Some of these plants were grown on the ISS and others back on Earth. There was little difference between the two. The space seeds had their protein stores packed a little differently and the plants' branches grew in slightly different directions. But these are small details, Stankovic says. "It is likely that the previous failed attempts had to do with inadequate control of the growth environment," he says. "Microgravity per se is not a limiting factor."
For more details, please read the article on growing farms in space
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