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posted by chromas on Friday April 06 2018, @03:45AM   Printer-friendly
from the crops-from-outer-space dept.

Scientists have harvested the first vegetables grown in the EDEN-ISS greenhouse at Germany's Neumeyer-Station III in Antarctica. 3.6 kg of salad greens, 18 cucumbers, and 70 radishes were grown inside the greenhouse, which uses a closed water cycle with no soil.

An air management system controls the temperature and humidity, removes contaminants (such as ethylene, microbes, and viruses) and regulates the amount of oxygen and carbon dioxide to optimize growth. Water-cooled LEDs deliver lighting with a spectrum that is 15% blue (400-500 nm), 10% green (500-600 nm), ~75% red (600-700 nm), and ~2% far-red (700-750 nm). A nutrient delivery system stores stock solutions, acids/bases, deionized water, and nutrient solution, and pumps them into the cultivation system as needed.

The final crop yield for the shipping container sized facility is estimated to be 4.25 kg per week (250g each of lettuce, chard, rugula, and spinach, 1 kg of tomatoes, 600g of sweet peppers, 1 kg of cucumbers, 250g of radishes, 100g of strawberries, and 300g of herbs). The purpose of the project is to test food production technologies that could be used on the International Space System, Moon, Mars missions, etc. It will also provide fresh food supplementation year-round for the crew of Neumeyer-Station III (estimated population of 9 in the winter, 50 in the summer).

EDEN-ISS has some advantages (open, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.60431) (DX) over the ISS's current Veggie system, including a higher available growth surface, longer possible production cycle using complete nutrient solution circulation, better reliability and safety, and the ability to grow taller crops (up to 60 cm). The system is designed to be flown to the ISS as a payload of EDR II experimental inserts.

Related: Tomorrow, NASA Astronauts Will Finally Eat Fresh, Microgravity-Grown Veggies
SpaceX Launches CRS-14 Resupply Mission to the ISS (carried the competing Passive Orbital Nutrient Delivery System)


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday April 06 2018, @08:44AM (2 children)

    by GreatAuntAnesthesia (3275) on Friday April 06 2018, @08:44AM (#663340) Journal

    What I believe could be missing is a system to turn poop into an amount of the nutrient solution

    https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/01/29/2236256 [soylentnews.org]

    In particular.... (quoting myself)

    All sewage / biological waste on the spacecraft should be mashed into a watery sludge and slowly pumped through an array of thin tanks - more like panels, really, stacked atop one another, on the outside of the vehicle.
    It takes days or weeks for the sludge to pass through the full set of tanks, starting at the outermost one and working its way back in. Basically, you want it out there for however long it needs for the solar / cosmic radiation to kill 99.99% of all bacteria. By the time it makes it back inside the ship, it is more or less sterile, but full of nutrients. Dry it 1, spread it out and add some nice soil bacteria. Now you can grow crops in it, completing the cycle.

    It's a long process which would require a lot of material, but as long as that sludge is on the outside of the ship (and there always would be some, as long as the crew keeps eating) it is providing radiation shielding. Might work better on a fixed habitat (moonbase?) than on a ship, but I see no reason why it shouldn't work.

    For bonus points: Use it as a heatsink too: Excess heat from the engines or wherever can be transferred to the poosludge, whence it can radiate off into space. This will help maintain the ship at a livable temperature and further help kill off the bacteria2

    1 All extracted water is recycled, obviously
    2 Well, it depends how much heat you transfer, obviously. You shouldn't need to get it too warm to screw with the bacteria's lifecycle.

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  • (Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Friday April 06 2018, @06:30PM (1 child)

    by ElizabethGreene (6748) Subscriber Badge on Friday April 06 2018, @06:30PM (#663506) Journal

    >For bonus points: Use it as a heatsink too

    I'd be surprised if they needed to add heat. In composting it's not uncommon for the center of a pile to get hot enough that the heat is a limiting factor. It kills off the bacteria doing the work. This is a problem, so you put pipes into big piles so air can circulate and remove the heat.