Space farming and its impact on the future of space exploration.
Daniel Santiago Sánchez Villada
Juan Pablo Arias Escobar
English III
Universidad de Antioquia
Engineering College
Aerospace Engineering
El Carmen de Viboral, Antioquia, Colombia
Space farming and its impact on the future of space exploration.
Introduction
Space farming is that type of farming that is governed by unique factors unlike any on planet
Earth, such as microgravity, ionizing radiation, and oxidative or abiotic stress. Therefore,
astrobotany is needed to solve these problems.
In this text you will be able to see the advances of space farming, its status and why we are
in a moment of transition and beginning between test and final product. In addition to its
importance in the futuristic vision of guided space exploration towards the Martian planet for
this decade, and its uses for a possible global collapse of the food system, using different
extraterrestrial areas as a place of cultivation.
Where are we going and what do we need?
One of the most ambitious projects of humans is space exploration, through trips and stays
in astronomical objects or satellites. Technological evolution in the field of astronomy has
generated more intrigue for us. In addition to creating more influx of scientific careers, there
is also greater support for the educational system and an improvement in the budget of space
agencies for their new projections.
The management of the land, for its production and to generate food, has been one of the
oldest group activities of humans, it has been fundamental around its evolution, taken as an
alternative or priority for the nutrition of its members. Agriculture as a fundamental pillar of
all civilizations, has been evolving from practical to technical use, and lately technological.
From the first plants such as wheat and barley, in the Egyptian, Central Asian and
Mesopotamian culture, also used for textile fibers and other more complex products such as
oil, wine and medicine; reaching its industrialization, introducing more efficient and faster
process mechanisms, advanced irrigation techniques, new fertilizers, as well as new
chemicals that help protect food, greater conservation and increased characteristics for a
better final product.
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However, agriculture not only generates positive changes; low productivity per hectare,
unforeseen weather conditions and the amount of deforestation due to the need to use large
extensions of land, causing migration or simply extinction of some species, said Jorge
Alberto Meza Robayo, senior forestry officer of the FAO (Food and Agriculture
Organization) for Latin America and the Caribbean:
«Commercial agriculture cannot continue to grow at the expense of the region's
forests and natural resources». (2016, paragraph 3)
How would a space farming help us?
For this reason, spatial agricultural cultivation is one of the best ways to ban logging and
using less forested areas to make it a suitable place for cultivation. This type of cultivation,
as its name suggests, occurs in outer space, after the Earth's atmosphere, which is guided by
causes other than any that occurs in the biosphere, such as stress due to lack of oxygen,
ionizing radiation and microgravity whose G forces are very small.
In addition to this benefit of alleviating deforestation, it is a starting point to make space
travel feasible, reducing its prices, cutting time and necessary personnel. A not far away
example is what happened in the film directed by the British filmmaker Ridley Scott, based
on the book "The Martian". Where the botanist Mark Watney acted by the American Matt
Damon, using terrestrial and Martian soil fertilized by his feces, an oxygenator to split the
carbon dioxide molecule and a catalyst for hydrazine (a compound used in rockets), and thus
obtain oxygen and hydrogen, combining them with a flame, generating an exothermic
reaction, and finally generating water; later used to make their Solanum tuberosum (potato)
crop for their survival.
This example, although given in a science fiction movie, in this case, is more science than
fiction. If the right environments and machinery are given, a crop on Mars is possible. A
good organization and investment could return to this sister planet as our place of production
and food storage for the next space expeditions, making it a central point for them. The
SpaceX company in collaboration with the US space agency, NASA, have a project to
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colonize Mars in the year 2024, giving as a firm position on the part of the physicist,
entrepreneur, tycoon, and inventor Elon Musk, who said:
“Well, this is gonna sound pretty crazy, but I think we could land on the moon in less
than two years. Certainly, with an uncrewed vehicle I believe we could land on the
moon in two years”. (2019, paragraph 23)
These plans directed for the next three years, it is not only to think about it, the resources,
processes, personnel, scientists, aircraft, cargo, among others, must be measured; to be able
to stay on a planet as inhospitable and uninhabitable as the red planet. A place that does not
have oxygen or natural resources necessary for proper cultivation, and does not use the few
essential elements for respiration, therefore, as the American astronomer Lucianne
Walkowicz said:
“If we can understand how to create and maintain habitable space out of hostile,
inhospitable spaces here on Earth, perhaps we can meet the needs of both preserving
our own environment and moving beyond it”. (2016, 4´30´´)
How have we advanced in space cultivation?
The first steps to grow a crop in space were thanks to the Arabidopsis Thaliana species, which
in August 1982 at the Salyut 7 station was the first to flourish, thanks to the Soviet
cosmonauts Anatoli Beriozovói and Valentin Lebedez. The two of them were available to
give him artificial light 24 hours a day, as well as a water pump and fans for better air
circulation.
This species continues to make progress, since it was the basis of the AGI (Arabidopsis
Genome Initiative) project, which was the first plant whose genome was sequenced. It also
gave rise to the Root experiment, a fundamental pillar of this great aspiration, which was the
first European plant biology experiment. This experiment drew conclusions about the
changes of this in the new habitat, so there was an increase in the rate of cell proliferation in
the radical meristems, a decrease in the rate of cell growth, and due to the alteration in gravity,
there was a curvature in the auxin (main regulator of plant growth).
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The absence of gravitropism or the alteration of the gravity vector produce very evident
consequences such as the change in the direction of the axis of the plant or the tangled
appearance presented by the cultures of seedlings grown in an environment without gravity.
The positive gravitropism of plant roots is due to cells specialized in receiving mechanical
stimuli called statocyst, which are subcellular particles loaded with starch grains, whose
movement as a function of gravity stimulates a chain of signal transduction which ends in
the nucleus with the differential expression of certain genes and in the generation of changes
in hormonal secretions, all resulting in morphological changes in the plant. (Francisco Javier
Medina, 2012, pages 88, 90).
And the surprise fact was the response of the genes to abiotic stress (which is the imbalance
between the production of oxygen reactions and decoding to repair this damage).
After the base experiment, others were carried out, highlighting the "Seedling Growth-3" in
charge of the SpaceX-11 mission, with this same plant species. With a large working group
led by project manager Elizabeth Pane, ESA (European Space Agency) researcher Francisco
Javier Medina, project scientist Gwo-Shing Sun, ESA co-investigator Raúl Herranz, coinvestigator of Nasa (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) John Z. Kiss and
Richard E. Edelmann. As a result, light was given as a solution to the lack of gravity,
especially red light, which is the best mitigator against this stress.
Another big step was on August 15, 2015, the day on which the first edible plant could be
taken and therefore the first bite of food made entirely in space. Scott Kelly was the one who
communicated this great news. Nipposinica, a subspecies of Brassica rapa, or commonly
known as Mizuna lettuce.
This breakthrough was made thanks to a piece of equipment from ORBITEC (Orbital
Technologies Corp.), called Veggie, loaded with LED lighting, flexible support arms, clear
bellows, express rack mount plate and root mat reservoir. Also using the exchange of
environmental gases to regulate the temperature, relative humidity, and composition of the
gas.
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Other plants that have emerged in space are Solanum lycopersicum, Triticum, Oryza sativa
and Capsicum annuun, as well as Arabidpsis and lettuce.
The last important advance was the germination of Gossypium or cotton in the dark place of
the Moon, this by the Chinese mission Chang'e 4, led by Professor Xie Gengxin, who said:
" Learning about the growth of these plants in a low-gravity environment will allow
us to lay the groundwork for the future establishment of a space base" (2019,
paragraph 16).
Conclusions
Space farming is the best method for us as humans to become an interplanetary race,
sustainable and a little less self-destructive thanks to overpopulation. In addition, it has
advanced step by step, but promptly, letting us understand the best methods for its application
and possible anticipation of problems that occur due to factors never seen before. This new
method is the most profitable way to a future renewal of terrestrial agriculture, saving species
of fauna and flora, destroyed by deforestation, building greenhouses on the Moon and/or
Mars.
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