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What Teens Say...
Name: Stephanie Danielson
Essay Theme: Cultivating New Technologies |
State: Hawaii
School: St. Michael's School |
Producing Food in Space |
The idea of producing food in space originated from NASA's interest
in long-term manned space flights and the possible colonization
of the moon and planets. The purpose was to provide food to
support life without having to bring it. NASA wanted to keep
the astronauts alive much longer with food grown in space instead
of bringing packaged food to support the entire trip. It would
be impossible to send along enough food and water for space
explorers on an extended space mission.
Food is part of an astronaut's life-support system. Life support
systems also consist of potable water and breathable air. The
food that the astronauts need to eat in order to live is made
of carbon, water, and other mineral elements, the same from
which plant biomasses are made. Water can be recycled from wastes
and collected from plant biomass, and plants produce the oxygen
for the breathable air.
Plants have proved to be a very important life source to the
astronauts in the spaceship, because in order to live, the astronauts
need a supply of oxygen and food. Plants can provide both and
are also important in the Biogenerative Productive System, or
BPS, in which food is produced and human wastes are recycled.
Before
NASA could design a life-support system for long space flights
they had to design a plant that could grow well in space. They
needed to make 3,000 kilocalories per day for every astronaut.
They had plenty of sunlight and could bring water, but they
needed a plant that could grow in microgravity-that is, very
little gravity, almost weightlessness.
Apogee wheat is one food supply that NASA developed that can
be grown in space. It grows faster than the wheat on Earth and
produces enough food to support the astronauts. Bruce Bugbee
is a biometeorologist from Utah who invented this wheat that
grows in microgravity. There are other wheats, too, that can
grow in space; for example, dwarf wheat. This gives a variety
to the astronauts.
Another food plant is astroplants, a plant that can provide
astronauts with food, helps the BPS, and grows well in space.
The International Space Station is allowing NASA scientists
and other researchers like students to explore and develop food
production systems in space. NASA calls the research "Astroculture,"
a study that will enable sustained life-support systems. These
studies also will help increase Earth's environmental and public
health.
In the future we will travel long distances in space. We will
have to be ready to feed the explorers who make the trip. Today's
research and the future space station research will help us
develop food that will support our future exploration.
References:
| In space, agriculture develops roots- "AstrocultureTM"
expected to aid crop |
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yield and enhance disease resistance on Earth. 2001.
<http://www.ecology.com/ecology-today/astroculture/> |
| Mars Academy. 2002. <http://www.marsacademy.com/> |
| Space Station Challenge. 2002. <http://voyager.cet.edu/iss/activities/farminspace.
asp> |
| Stubbendiek, C. 2002. Space farming. New
York Times, 9 May. |
This essay was part of a 2003 essay contest sponsored by
Council for Agricultural Science & Technology.
Click here to see how essays were
selected.
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