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The History of Food and Exploration, an Overview of the History of Space Food Systems, the Vision of Space Crop Production and its Role in Exploration, an Overview of Challenges and Knowledge Gaps with Reference to Recent Flight Testing on the International Space Station, Crop Production Challenges Beyond Low Earth Orbit including the Lunar Operations, the Transit Mission to Mars and Mars Surface Operations.
This keynote presentation will give a broad overview of human life support considerations and the work focused in different areas for evolving missions. The roles of plants and vision and roadmap for space crop production will be highlighted. Space crop production challenges in different exploration environments will be discussed, and then an overview of the crop plant research in Veggie and the advanced plant habitat will be provided.
As astronauts venture farther from Earth, and for longer periods, food will become increasingly critical. Crop production can supplement a packaged diet to provide additional nutrients and variety for astronauts. Testing with the Veggie and Advanced Plant Habitat chambers on the International Space Station is allowing us to understand the impacts of gravity and spaceflight on crop growth and nutritional content, and the importance of plants to astronauts living and working away from our home planet. The space environment presents unique challenges to crop production, and technology and knowledge gaps have been identified. Key gaps include how to: • Identify and demonstrate effective options to provide both water and oxygen to the root zone in microgravity • Understand the deep space radiation impacts on seeds and plants • Investigate the relationship between microbiomes and food safety • Store and handle seeds to ensure they are viable, free of contaminants and long-lived • Identify / develop potential crops suitable for the space environment • Understand automation and human factors • Determine scalability for different concepts and architectures Filling these gaps will help enable future human exploration and move us toward Earth-independence.
A short video presentation on space crop production research and challenges for educators attending the 2024 Space Exploration Educators Conference at Space Center Houston.
Alternative data systems for a global crop production forecasting system were studied with the aid of a unique simulation facility called the Data System Dynamic Simulator (DSDS). Information system requirements were determined and compared with existing and planned data systems, and deficiencies were identified and analyzed. A first step was to determine the data load for an operational global crop production forecasting system as a function of data frequency, crop types, biophases, cloud coverage, and number of satellites. The DSDS was used to correlate the interrelated influence of orbital parameters, crop calendars, and cloud conditions to generate global data loading profiles. Some of the more important conclusions and the main features of the simulation system are presented.
As astronauts venture farther from Earth, and for longer periods, the space food system will increase in importance. Crop production can supplement a packaged diet to provide additional nutrients and dietary variety for astronauts. Several unique challenges exist for growth of plants in microgravity and on other planetary surfaces. Testing with the Veggie and Advanced Plant Habitat (APH) chambers on the International Space Station is allowing us to understand the impacts of gravity and spaceflight on crop growth, nutritional content, and food acceptability, and the importance of plants to astronauts living and working away from Earth. Ohalo 3 is a new capability being developed that will pull from both Veggie and APH as we transition from research approaches to an operational space crop production system to enable human exploration of the moon and Mars.
As astronauts venture farther from Earth, and for longer periods, the space food system will increase in importance. Crop production can supplement a packaged diet to provide additional nutrients and dietary variety for astronauts. Several unique challenges exist for growth of plants in microgravity and on other planetary surfaces. Testing with the Veggie and Advanced Plant Habitat (APH) chambers on the International Space Station is allowing us to understand the impacts of gravity and spaceflight on crop growth, nutritional content, and food acceptability, and the importance of plants to astronauts living and working away from Earth. Ohalo III is a new capability being developed that will pull from both Veggie and APH as we transition from research approaches to an operational space crop production system to enable human exploration of the moon and Mars.
As astronauts venture farther from Earth, and stay for longer periods, the space food system will increase in importance. Crop production can supplement a pre-packaged space diet to provide nutrition and dietary variety for space crews. In future missions, bioregenerative approaches may be used to generate a larger percentage of the diet, as well as help to reduce life support system burdens and resupply from Earth. Plants may also provide behavioral health benefits to crew members living in the isolated, confined environment of a space habitat. A number of unique challenges exist for growth of plants in microgravity and on other reduced gravity surfaces like the moon and Mars. Testing with the Veggie and Advanced Plant Habitat (APH) chambers on the International Space Station is allowing us to understand the impacts of gravity and spaceflight on crop growth, nutritional content, acceptability, and the importance of plants to astronauts living and working away from Earth. We are also gaining a better understanding of food safety concerns and the behavior of space plant microbiomes and plant pathogens, but major gaps in knowledge remain. As we move from research towards operational space crop production to enable exploration, there are numerous gaps in technology, knowledge, and practice related to space crop growth that must be addressed.
This project set out to establish a method for introducing Plant Growth Promoting Microbes to seed film for use in a flight-based crop production system. The inoculation method, demonstrated in this paper, succeeded in this introduction while simultaneously avoiding disrupting the integrity of the seed film material. Future research should continue to explore the idea of growth production and crop protection via intentional introduction of an exophytic microbiome including the verification of effects of varying inoculum concentrations on mature plants. Positive effects are more likely to be noted when multiple organisms are introduced simultaneously. Additional benefit is likely to be seen on an experimental basis when crops are challenged via the introduction of both biotic and abiotic stressors.
As part of bioregenerative life support feasibility testing by NASA, crop residues are being used to resupply elemental nutrients to recirculating hydroponic crop production systems. Methods for recovering nutrients from crop residues have evolved from water soaking (leaching) to rapid aerobic bioreactor processing. Leaching residues recovered the majority of elements but it also recovered significant amounts of soluble organics. The high organic content of leachates was detrimental to plant growth. Aerobic bioreactor processing reduced the organic content ten-fold, which reduced or eliminated phytotoxic effects. Wheat and potato production studies were successful using effluents from reactors having with 8- to 1-day retention times. Aerobic bioreactor effluents supplied at least half of the crops elemental mass needs in these studies. Descriptions of leachate and effluent mineral content, biomass productivity, microbial activity, and nutrient budgets for potato and wheat are presented.
ECON's distribution benefits model has been applied to worldwide distribution of corn, rye, oats, barley, soybeans, and sugar, and to domestic distribution of potatoes. The results indicate that a LANDSAT system with thematic mapper might produce benefits to the United States of about $119 million per year, due to more efficient distribution of these commodities. The benefits to the rest of the world have also been calculated, with a breakdown between trade benefits and those associated with internal use patterns. By far the greatest part of the estimated benefits are assigned to corn, with smaller benefits assigned to soybeans and the small grains (rye, oats, and barley).
The coupling of plant growth and waste recycling systems is an important step toward the development of bioregenerative life support systems. This research examined the effectiveness of two alternative methods for recycling nutrients from the inedible fraction (residue) of candidate crops in a bioregenerative system as follows: (1) extraction in water, or leaching, and (2) combustion at 550 C, with subsequent reconstitution of the ash in acid. The effectiveness of the different methods was evaluated by (1) comparing the percent recovery of nutrients, and (2) measuring short- and long-term plant growth in hydroponic solutions, based on recycled nutrients.
Production of fresh, nutritious, and tasty produce for astronauts during spaceflight may provide health-promoting, bioavailable nutrients and enhance the dietary experience as we move into longer-duration missions. Growing and caring for plants may also reduce the psychological stresses associated with spaceflight and enhance connections to Earth. Requirements to consistently grow a diversity of crops under spaceflight environmental conditions remain poorly defined. The VEG-05 experiment is part of a series of experiments with pick-and-eat salad crops to better define best practices for crop production and handling in space. VEG-05 and predecessor experiments VEG-04A and VEG-04B, use the Veggie vegetable production facilities on the International Space Station to grow salad crops under different spectral compositions. In VEG-04A and B, mizuna mustard was cultivated with two different red: blue light treatments, and in VEG-05 we are cultivating ‘Red Robin’ dwarf cherry tomatoes under the same light spectra. Light can impact the growth habit, yield, nutritional composition, microbial levels, and even flavor attributes within crops, and our team will assess these characteristics for this crop during VEG-05. Prior to launch and installation on ISS in late 2022, both a science verification test (SVT), and an experiment verification test (EVT) were conducted at Kennedy Space Center in ISS Environment Simulator Chambers. Science verification testing, and a previous fertilizer test, grew plants in both plant pillows and PONDS (Passive Orbital Nutrient Delivery System) units and tested two different fertilizer treatments in both sets of hardware, with each test under only one of the light conditions. Because of challenges validating the PONDS hardware on ISS, and with good crop production in plant pillows, the EVT moved forward using only plant pillows with the highest fertilizer composition tested during SVT, and two Veggie units were utilized. One Veggie had light settings consisting of equal levels of red: blue light (150 µmol/m2/s for each color) plus green light (30 µmol/m2/s) while the second Veggie had a 90:10 ratio of red: blue light (270 µmol/m2/s red and 30 µmol/m2/s blue) plus green, so each unit provided 330 µmol/m2/s of photosynthetically active radiation to the tomato crops on average. Our original plan, based on prior ground testing, was to grow the crop for 104 days and harvest at 80, 90 and 104 days after initiation. For SVT, under the equal red: blue light treatment, fruit ripening in plant pillows was delayed and fruit were not ripe by day 80, so actual harvest days were days 90, 97, and 104. For EVT we saw fruit ripening earlier, especially in the high red treatment, and so we harvested at days 83, 90, and 99 days after initiation. In SVT we had mostly daily watering, and this led to excess water in plant pillows, which leaked out. This excess water also caused fungus to grow on one leaf and a couple of plant stems. To reduce this excess moisture, we throttled back the watering for EVT, and used the root mat reservoir more frequently. This led to watering only every other day, reducing crew time needed for plant care, however, two wilting events occurred during this EVT, at days 51 and 75. Plants recovered from these wilting events, but these events may have influenced the rate of fruit ripening and flower formation. Regardless, more than 10 fruit were produced from each plant on average, with the high red treatment producing slightly heavier fruit. Microbial testing from fruit during SVT indicated that fruit were safe for consumption with microbial levels below detection limits. VEG-05 flight and ground operations are expected to run between December 2022 and March 2023. This research was co-funded by the Human Research Program and Space Biology (MTL#1075) in the ILSRA 2015 NRA call.
As astronauts venture farther from Earth, and for longer periods, food will become increasingly critical. Crop production can supplement a packaged diet to provide additional nutrients and variety for astronauts. Testing with the Veggie chamber on the International Space Station is allowing us to understand the impacts of gravity and spaceflight on crop growth and nutritional content, and the importance of plants to astronauts living and working away from our blue home planet.
As astronauts venture farther from Earth, and for longer periods, food will become increasingly critical. Crop production can supplement a packaged diet to provide additional nutrients and variety for astronauts. Testing with the Veggie chamber on the International Space Station is allowing us to understand the impacts of gravity and spaceflight on crop growth and nutritional content, and the importance of plants to astronauts living and working away from our blue home planet.
As astronauts venture farther from Earth, and for longer periods, food will become increasingly critical. Crop production can supplement a packaged diet to provide additional nutrients and dietary variety for astronauts. Several unique challenges exist for growth of plants in microgravity and on other planetary surfaces. Testing with the Veggie chamber on the International Space Station is allowing us to understand the impacts of gravity and spaceflight on crop growth and nutritional content, and the importance of plants to astronauts living and working away from our blue home planet.
As astronauts venture farther from Earth, and for longer periods, food will become increasingly critical. Crop production can supplement a packaged diet to provide additional nutrients and dietary variety for astronauts. Several unique challenges exist for growth of plants in microgravity and on other planetary surfaces. Testing with the Veggie chamber on the International Space Station is allowing us to understand the impacts of gravity and spaceflight on crop growth and nutritional content, and the importance of plants to astronauts living and working away from our blue home planet.
As astronauts venture farther from Earth, and for longer periods, food will become increasingly critical. Crop production can supplement a packaged diet to provide additional nutrients and dietary variety for astronauts. Several unique challenges exist for growth of plants in microgravity and on other planetary surfaces. Testing with the Veggie chamber on the International Space Station is allowing us to understand the impacts of gravity and spaceflight on crop growth and nutritional content, and the importance of plants to astronauts living and working away from our blue home planet