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Illness induced by unsafe food is a problem of great public health significance. This study relates exclusively to the occurrence of chemical agents which will result in food unsafe for human consumption since the matter of food safety is of paramount importance in the mission and operation of the manned spacecraft program of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Microgreens have been recently identified as a new type of pick and eat salad crop that can be utilized in space crop production systems. The majority of traditionally grown leafy green crops can be grown as microgreens, in addition to crops such as legumes (e.g. pea shoots), sunflower, buckwheat, most herbs, and corn, presenting hundreds of microgreen crop options. With a wide variety of flavors, exceptional nutritional density, short growth cycles (7-14 days), and unmatched volume optimization potential, microgreens present as an interesting option for sustainable production of nutritious and flavorful crops in space. The food safety aspects of microgreens have been investigated by USDA in recent years, however, an assessment for crew consumption purposes has not yet been conducted to capture the variety of microgreen cultivar types grown in spaceflight relevant environmental conditions and hardware that could be a part of the astronaut diet. Seed sanitation methods will be developed for each microgreen cultivar to sanitize the seed coat and ensure viable germination and plant growth. Food safety analysis will be performed on 24 different fast-growing cultivars of microgreens by performing aerobic plate counts (APC), fungal counts, and select pathogen screening of edible plant tissue before and after treatment with ProSan sanitizing produce wash. Additional avenues of investigation into microgreens food safety will be undertaken to understand impacts of plant height at time of harvest (able to be manipulated by light spectrum), seed density at time of planting, and role of blue light in food safety metrics of microgreens (n=6-12 microgreen cultivars tested, depending on variable). These findings will be included in the Space Crop Production Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) plan. This new work is currently postponed due to Covid-19.
While traveling to deep space is difficult for many reasons, food is a crucial one. Round-trip Mars mission scenarios last 3 years, demanding food with a shelf-life of 5 years; this means that feeding human crew sustainably for long-duration missions beyond low Earth orbit (LEO) will ultimately lead to a paradigm shift away from the current Earth-based food production system, which depends upon storing and transporting prepackaged foods, and toward bio-regenerative production of food in space. Pharmaceuticals and nutritional supplements face similar challenges. Moreover, the methods we currently use to detect dangerous microbes in food require sample return to Earth, a situation not viable for deep-space missions. While the science behind generating foods and bioproducts is covered by other white papers, in this paper we discuss a crucial gap uniting all of them: how to ensure that such products are free of unwanted microbial contamination and safe for crew to consume. Because Earth-based food safety systems cannot be directly applied in space, safety assurance is currently a critical bottleneck in the space production of food and other bioproducts. Future sustainable deep-space missions will require NASA to devote more resources in the coming decade to understanding the biological and physical science principles underlying microbial food safety in space, and to developing efficient, reliable methods in this area.
This presentation will highlight the unique challenges and opportunities of microbial food safety for space grown produce as part of a joint webinar on controlled environment food safety.
When NASA faced the problem of how and what to feed an astronaut in a sealed capsule under weightless conditions while planning for manned space mission, they enlisted the aid of The Pillsbury Company. There were two principal concerns: barring crumbs of food that might contaminate the spacecraft's atmosphere or float their way into sensitive instruments; and assuring absolute freedom from potentially catastrophic disease-producing bacteria and toxins. Pillsbury quickly solved the first concern, but the other part of the problem was not as easy. They found that with using standard methods, there was no way to be assured there would not be any bacteria. It was concluded that the only way to succeed was to establish control over the entire process, the raw materials, the processing environment and the people involved. Pillsbury developed the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) concept. The HACCP is designed to prevent food safety problems rather than to catch them after they have occurred. Three other government agencies are taking preliminary steps toward extending HACCP to meat/poultry and seafood inspection operations. Today, Pillsbury plants are still operating under HACCP.
The goal of this project is to select and advance methods to enable real-time sampling, microbiological analysis, and sanitation of crops grown on the International Space Station (ISS). These methods would validate the microbiological quality of crops grown for consumption to ensure safe and palatable fresh foods. This would be achieved through the development / advancement of microbiological sample collection, rapid pathogen detection and effective sanitation methods that are compatible with a microgravity environment.
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Soybeans (cv. Hoyt) is one of the crops planned for food production within the Advanced Life Support System Integration Testbed (ALSSIT), a proposed habitat simulation for long duration lunar/Mars missions. Soybeans may be processed into a variety of food products, including soymilk, tofu, and tempeh. Due to the closed environmental system and importance of crew health maintenance, food safety is a primary concern on long duration space missions. Identification of the food safety hazards and critical control points associated with the closed ALSSIT system is essential for the development of safe food processing techniques and equipment. A Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) model was developed to reflect proposed production and processing protocols for ALSSIT soybeans. Soybean processing was placed in the type III risk category. During the processing of ALSSIT-grown soybeans, critical control points were identified to control microbiological hazards, particularly mycotoxins, and chemical hazards from antinutrients. Critical limits were suggested at each CCP. Food safety recommendations regarding the hazards and risks associated with growing, harvesting, and processing soybeans; biomass management; and use of multifunctional equipment were made in consideration of the limitations and restraints of the closed ALSSIT.
NASA has identified the need for robust and sustainable ‘Pick-and-Eat’ systems for supplementing crew diets with fresh leafy green crops in near-term LEO (Low Earth Orbit), cislunar, and lunar missions. Spaceflight plant growth systems have been primarily designed for conducting space biology studies, but these systems are not optimal for sustained food production. Improved water and nutrient delivery subsystems that do not use bulky and non-reusable media are needed for decreasing the mass of the food production system. Autonomous technologies for monitoring plant health and food safety are needed for ensuring that the food produced is suitable supplementing crew diets with fresh, nutritious salad crops. Improved plant imaging techniques used for high-throughput phenotyping can be leveraged for monitoring plant health. Near-real-time measurements of the microbial ecology of food production systems are needed for assessing food safety. Furthermore, newly identified plant species and cultivars with improved growth habits and contents of antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals when grown in spaceflight environmental conditions are needed. These improvements in food production technologies will enable the design of sustainable life support systems for manned exploration missions beyond Low Earth Orbit.
The Veggie vegetable production system was launched to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2014. Veggie was designed by ORBITEC to be a compact, low mass, low power vegetable production system for astronaut crews. Veggie consists of a light cap containing red, blue, and green LEDs, an extensible transparent bellows, and a baseplate with a root mat reservoir. Seeds are planted in plant pillows, small growing bags that interface with the reservoir. The Veggie technology validation test, VEG-01, was initiated with the first test crop of 'Outredgeous' red romaine lettuce. Prior to flight, lettuce seeds were sanitized and planted in a substrate of arcillite (baked ceramic) mixed with controlled release fertilizer. Upon initiation, astronauts open the packaged plant pillows, install them in the Veggie hardware, and prime the system with water. Operations include plant thinning, watering, and photography. Plants were grown on the ISS for 33 days, harvested, and returned frozen to Earth for analysis. Ground controls were conducted at Kennedy Space Center in controlled environment chambers reproducing ISS conditions of temperature, relative humidity, and CO2. Returned plant samples were analyzed for microbial food safety and chemistry including elements, antioxidants, anthocyanins and phenolics. In addition the entire plant microbiome was sequenced, and returned plant pillows were analyzed via x-ray tomography. Food safety analyses allowed us to gain approvals for future consumption of lettuce by the flight surgeons and the payload safety office. A second crop of lettuce was grown in 2015, and the crew consumed half the produce, with the remainder frozen for later analysis. This growth test was followed by testing of a new crop in Veggie, zinnias. Zinnias were grown to test a longer duration flowering crop in preparation for tests of tomatoes and other fruiting crops in the future. Zinnias were harvested in February. Samples from the second harvest of lettuce and the zinnia harvest are frozen on the ISS and will return with the next cargo return flight. Some challenges occurred in all tests, especially in the area of watering, with plants receiving insufficient or excess water leading to stressed growth. Zinnia plants were also challenged with fungal growth. Initial tests with Veggie have given us great insight into future crop production scenarios as we work to develop regular supplemental salad crop production on ISS and larger food production systems for our journey to Mars. Funding for this research comes from NASA's Space Biology Program.
Growth of fresh, nutritious, palatable produce for crew consumption during spaceflight may provide health-promoting, bioavailable nutrients and enhance the dietary experience as we move toward longer-duration missions. Tending plants also may serve as a countermeasure for crew psychological stresses associated with long duration spaceflight. However, requirements to support consistent growth of a variety of high quality, nutritious crops under spaceflight environmental conditions is unknown. This study is exploring the potential to grow plants for food production on the International Space Station (ISS) using the Veggie vegetable production system. Ground testing is underway to compare the impacts of several fertilizer and lighting treatments on growth, quality, and nutritional composition of the leafy green crop mizuna, and the dwarf tomato crop Red Robin when subjected to Veggie ISS environmental conditions. Early testing focused on the leafy crop Tokyo Bekana Chinese cabbage, but ground tests indicated that this plant suffered from stress responses when grown under LEDs and the chronically elevated CO2 levels found on the ISS. Mizuna, a related leafy variety that grows well in the presence of high CO2, and has excellent organoleptic characteristics, was selected as an alternate crop. Tomato crops have been grown using two fertilizer formulations and two pollination techniques, and growth tests using different red:blue lighting environments are underway. Chemical analysis is also being conducted and these data, when coupled with the growth results, will be used to down-select to the two best lighting treatments and best fertilizer treatment for future testing of each crop on the ISS. Additionally, seed-source testing has become important, with mizuna seeds from two different vendors growing very differently. A seed source has been selected, and seed-surface-sanitizing methods have been confirmed for mizuna, but these remain under development for tomato. A crop-handling protocol is also being evaluated to support food safety. All harvests reserve a subset of samples for microbial analysis to determine baseline microbial levels and help establish critical control points for food safety. Testing was initially conducted in hardware analogs of the standard Veggie plant pillows. However, a new Veggie watering system, the Passive Orbital Nutrient Delivery System or PONDS, has been designed and is being prepared for future flight experiments. With the selection of this growth system, ground tests have shifted to analog PONDS systems. Crop tests on ISS, designated VEG-04 for mizuna and VEG-05 for tomato, are planned in 2018 to evaluate any additional impacts of spaceflight on the light and fertilizer conditions down-selected from ground tests. A set of Veggie-specific questions has been developed to characterize the psychological impacts of plant growth and plant-care activities during spaceflight. Organoleptic questionnaires have been developed to assess produce attributes in microgravity taste sessions. These tests for plants growing in the Veggie hardware on ISS will help to mitigate the risk of an inadequate food supply for long duration missions by developing methods and determining hardware requirements to integrate fresh vegetables as a dietary supplement. This research was co-funded by the Human Research Program and Space Biology (MTL1075) in the ILSRA 2015 NRA call.
Growth of fresh, nutritious, palatable produce for crew consumption during spaceflight may provide health-promoting, bioavailable nutrients and enhance the dietary experience as we move toward longer-duration missions. Tending plants also may serve as a countermeasure for crew psychological stresses associated with long duration spaceflight. However, requirements to support consistent growth of a variety of high quality, nutritious crops under spaceflight environmental conditions is unknown. This study is exploring the potential to grow plants for food production on the International Space Station (ISS) using the Veggie vegetable production system. Ground testing is underway to compare the impacts of several fertilizer and lighting treatments on growth, quality, and nutritional composition of the leafy green crop mizuna, and the dwarf tomato crop "Red Robin" when subjected to Veggie ISS environmental conditions. Early testing focused on the leafy crop "Tokyo Bekana" Chinese cabbage, but ground tests indicated that this plant suffered from stress responses when grown under LEDs and the chronically elevated CO2 levels found on the ISS. Mizuna, a related leafy variety that grows well in the presence of high CO2, and has excellent organoleptic characteristics, was selected as an alternate crop. Tomato crops have been grown using two fertilizer formulations and two pollination techniques, and growth tests using different red:blue lighting environments are underway. Chemical analysis is also being conducted and these data, when coupled with the growth results, will be used to down-select to the two best lighting treatments and best fertilizer treatment for future testing of each crop on the ISS. Additionally, seed-source testing has become important, with mizuna seeds from two different vendors growing very differently. A seed source has been selected, and seed-surface-sanitizing methods have been confirmed for mizuna, but these remain under development for tomato. A crop-handling protocol is also being evaluated to support food safety. All harvests reserve a subset of samples for microbial analysis to determine baseline microbial levels and help establish critical control points for food safety. Testing was initially conducted in hardware analogs of the standard Veggie plant pillows. However, a new Veggie watering system, the Passive Orbital Nutrient Delivery System or PONDS, has been designed and is being prepared for future flight experiments. With the selection of this growth system, ground tests have shifted to analog PONDS systems. Crop tests on ISS, designated VEG-04 for mizuna and VEG-05 for tomato, are planned in 2018 to evaluate any additional impacts of spaceflight on the light and fertilizer conditions down-selected from ground tests. A set of Veggie-specific questions has been developed to characterize the psychological impacts of plant growth and plant-care activities during spaceflight. Organoleptic questionnaires have been developed to assess produce attributes in microgravity taste sessions. These tests for plants growing in the Veggie hardware on ISS will help to mitigate the risk of an inadequate food supply for long duration missions by developing methods and determining hardware requirements to integrate fresh vegetables as a dietary supplement. This research was co-funded by the Human Research Program and Space Biology (MTL#1075) in the ILSRA 2015 NRA call.
Space crop production systems that mitigate risks of crew poor performance or illness due to inadequate food and nutrition are needed during manned Artemis exploration missions beyond LEO. Prototype farms must be designed for deployment on ISS and tested in manned platforms: Gateway, lunar habitats, and Mars trans-hab spacecraft in preparation for human missions to Mars. Food production must be optimal and safe for human consumption. Thus, plant growth facilities (i.e. Veggie and APH) can be enhanced with imaging systems (including hyperspectral, multispectral, lidar, and fluorescence imaging systems) for nondestructive monitoring of plant health, stress and assessing food safety. Databases of crop responses to stress obtained during ground studies can be used to develop novel artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms for optimizing crop production (i.e. environmental settings during growth) and for detecting crop indices that ensure food safety. Future farming systems should be sustainable and smart. Novel adaptive AI algorithms requiring limited data sets for calibration are needed for reducing crew intervention during plant cultivation except for maintenance and harvesting events. Eventually, AI driven control systems that include autonomous planting, growing, and harvesting as well as periodic sanitization need evaluation for supplementing crew diets with fresh produce during future Mars exploration missions.
Production of fresh, nutritious, and tasty produce for astronauts during spaceflight may provide health-promoting, bioavailable nutrients, enhance the dietary experience, and reduce menu fatigue as we move into longer-duration missions. Growing and caring for plants may also reduce the psychological stresses associated with spaceflight and enhance connection to Earth. A diversity of crops will be required to provide nutrition, variety, and resiliency, however requirements for consistent growth under spaceflight environmental conditions remain unclear. VEG-05 is part of a series of experiments with pick-and-eat salad crops to better define best practices for crop production in space. VEG-05 and predecessor experiments VEG-04A and VEG-04B, grew salad crops in the Veggie vegetable production facilities on the International Space Station using different lighting treatments. In VEG-05 we grew ‘Red Robin’ dwarf cherry tomatoes under two different red: blue lighting spectra. Light can impact the growth habit, yield, nutritional composition, microbial levels, and even flavor attributes within crops, and our goal was to assess these characteristics in ‘Red Robin’ tomatoes during VEG-05. Considerable pre-flight verification testing was performed prior to launch in Nov. 2022. Prior to the flight and ground experiments, lighting in both Veggie units on ISS was measured and lights were standardized between flight and ground hardware. VEG-05 flight operations ran between December 2022 and March 2023, with a ground control initially 48 hours delayed. Due to environmental challenges of very low humidity during the first week of the experiment, seed germination was low for both flight and ground plants. The flight experiment ultimately had 4 - 5 plants per treatment out of the planned 6 plants, but the initial ground control had only three plants in one treatment and none in the other, so this ground control was restarted at the beginning of Feb. 2023 and ran through May, with successful growth of all 12 plants. Both flight and ground control ran 100 days, with harvests of fruit at day 83, day 90, and day 100. Flight plants had uneven growth, and following the early drying events, excess water was frequently observed, which led to a variety of plant stress responses including uneven plant growth, excess adventitious root formation, flower and fruit abortion, and visible microbial growth. In total, from the five surviving red-rich lighted plants, only 5 ripe fruit were produced, and from the four surviving blue-rich lighted plants, 10 fruit were produced with only 6 of these ripe by day 100. Because of the small fruit number and the unsatisfactory growth, crew members were not allowed to consume the tomatoes, and all fruit, as well as large branches with leaves, samples of the adventitious roots, two plant rooting pillows from each treatment, microbial sampling swabs, and some water samples were returned for analysis. Because of the small sample sizes and factors affecting growth on the ISS, objectives of assessing light quality effect (red: blue light treatments) will not be achieved. Revised objectives of this study include to compare stressed flight plants with normal ground plants to determine the impact of plant overwatering stress in space on food safety and the plant microbial community, to determine nutrient content changes in fruit and leaves from stressed plants, and to evaluate stress metabolism changes in returned tissue by transcriptomic analysis. Postflight analysis is underway with the following analyses being conducted: A. culturable microbiology and food safety as well as molecular microbial community analysis of 1. ripe fruit, 2. leaves, stems, and adventitious roots, 3. pillow components (roots, wicks, and substrates), 4. swabs, and 5. water samples from root mats before and after growth. B. transcriptomics of leaf tissue and adventitious roots, and C. elemental analysis of leaf tissue. If sufficient tissue remains elemental analyses will also be conducted on fruit. While not generating the desired information on spaceflight growth responses of healthy crops, our team is hopeful that these analyses will shed light on tomato responses to stress in this environment as plant overwatering stress is a mission-relevant condition that could occur in future space crop growth systems. This research was co-funded by the Human Research Program and Space Biology (MTL#1075) in the ILSRA 2015 NRA call.
Microgreens are small-size, nutrient-rich, and fast-grown crops, which are considered as candidates for future space exploration missions. In particular, the ISS, the Lunar Gateway, and Mars and Lunar missions could benefit from growing microgreens to supplement astronaut diets in the near future. Research at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center has focused on (1) the selection of microgreens compatible species, (2) the evaluation of microgreens food safety, (3) the use of passive wicking, on-demand watering, and hydroponics cultivation, (4) simulated microgravity growth, (5) microgreen canopy gas exchange, and (6) harvesting techniques in microgravity. This presentation summarizes this research. Microgreen species will be evaluated for their yield in relationship to the quantity of inputs – water, seeds, substrate, light intensity, photoperiod, crew time – required for their growth; for their organoleptic and sensory factors in order to down select species that are highly acceptable for humans; and for their microbial loads as detected in their growth environment and the food safety metrics of their edible tissue. Passive wicking, on-demand watering, and hydroponic systems are being studied as an efficient way to deliver essential nutrients and water to microgreens, included in a microgravity environment. Growth studies in simulated microgravity (using 3-dimensional clinostats) will assess microgreens growth relative to that in 1g. Gas exchange studies on microgreens canopies in various airflows will assess their photosynthesis and transpiration. Finally, a series of parabolic flights has enabled the evaluation of different harvesting and bagging techniques in microgravity. Indeed, traditional plant harvesting methods (scissors) in microgravity could generate significant microgreen debris in the space station cabin. Two innovative techniques, coupled to a dedicated bagging method, were designed and evaluated against the control, traditional, harvesting technique. This research was supported by grants from NASA KSC’s Independent Research and Technology Development Program, NASA’s Flight Opportunity Program, NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellowships (L.P. & C.J.) supported by NASA’s Space Biology program, and support from NASA’s Human Research Program.