USU researchers tending a garden for NASA
As NASA begins preparing for missions to the moon and Mars, the space agency recently awarded Utah State University a contract to study growing vegetables for space travel.
While the research at USU’s Space Dynamics Laboratory (SDL) is intended to help keep astronauts physically and mentally healthy, the results also could improve food safety on Earth. The $750,000, three-year NASA contract was in the pipeline even before President Bush in January announced plans to send humans to Mars.
Bruce Bugbee, a USU plant researcher, said part of the research will examine which vegetables can be grown most efficiently in space. Sending large amounts of pre-prepared foods to the International Space Station is feasible, but long-term journeys probably will require voyagers to grow crops along the way.
Boston lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, mizuna and radishes — all leafy vegetables — should be the easiest to grow, since the food is edible once the leaf is formed.
Other plants, such as tomatoes, peppers and peas may prove more challenging. Since people eat the reproductive portions of these plants, space farmers will have to wait for leaves and flowers to grow before the vegetables form.
And once an astronaut is holding that space-grown tomato, does it really need to be rinsed?
“Washing your vegetables in space is not trivial,” Bugbee said.
Water on Earth flows downward due to gravity, but in microgravity, it floats around in globs. Bugbee said the team will work on ways to wash plants in space, that would probably involve shooting water into a vacuum to force the water over the vegetables.
Researchers also will study what kind of fungi and bacteria develop on the vegetables after they are picked, he said. Knowing how long vegetables can last before they turn bad could create tests for grocery stores to use.
As for space purposes, the research team will also examine what air pollutants leafy plants might absorb. Bugbee said they want to be sure that the plants are still safe to eat.
Another aspect of study will be to see how much ethylene plants in space can tolerate. While this gas occurs naturally on Earth, it dissipates into the atmosphere. On a spacecraft, pollutants linger in the closed system, he said. Ethylene is 1,000 times more deadly to plants than carbon monoxide is to humans, Bugbee said.
Beyond food safety lies another important issue for space travel — mental health. The team will examine the psychological benefits of growing and eating vegetables.
“We know that astronauts really like to tend plants,” he said.
USU-designed plant-growth equipment known as Lada, now in use on the Russian section of the International Space Station, will be involved in the research. USU’s Space Dynamics Laboratory has worked with the Russian Institute of Bio-Medical Problems on plant growth since the days of the Mir space station. Utah State was the first school to develop wheat that could grow in space.
“We are saving NASA millions of dollars by building off the technology we have developed with our Russian partners,” said SDL scientist Gail Bingham in a press release.
glavine@sltrib.com