When astronautsfinallymake it to Mars , they ’ll postulate something to eat . And while NASA is working on shelf - stablerationsfor those eventual missions , astronauts will ideally be able to develop their own plant while exploring other world . That ’s where the University of Arizona ’s inflatable greenhouse come in in , designboom reports .
The University of Arizona ’s Controlled Environment Agriculture Center is help the space delegacy develop a closed - loop system of rules that can bring home the bacon cosmonaut with food for thought , clean house the melodic phrase , and recycle wastefulness and water in alien environments . This “ bioregenerative life history support system ” use plants and LEDs to recreate what ’s essentially a miniature Earth environment , according to designboom .
The Lunar Greenhouse image is an 18 - foot - long , 7 - human foot - all-embracing cylinder that is designed to take the carbon paper dioxide that astronauts take a breather out and turn it into oxygen through plant photosynthesis . Astronauts would introduce water supply into the system either from supplies they bring with them or that they find after they arrive , if potential . That water is then run through the cylinder , flow along the industrial plant ’ roots and back into the nursery storage system .
The scientist and engineers at the University of Arizona and NASA ’s Kennedy Advanced Life Support Research project are currently trying to image out what seeds , plants , and equipment will be necessary to make the system work on the moon or Mars . It may call for to be swallow underground to prevent radiation terms , hence the LED , but in sure environment , it may be able to work with just sunlight .
Scientists have already been working on growing plants beyond Earth ’s atmosphere without a dedicated greenhouse . Severalkinds of industrial plant , includingvegetablesandflowers , have been grown on the International Space Station . But for long - term exploration of other public , we ’ll ask something more lasting than a space station .
“ The greenhouses provide a more autonomous approach to long - term exploration on the moon , Mars and beyond , ” the Kennedy Space Center ’s Ray Wheeler say in apress release . It would , of course , be a lot easy to go to Mars with a clump of seeds than to fetch along age ’ worth of food and air purification equipment .
[ h / tdesignboom ]
