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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)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ElizabethGreene on Friday April 06 2018, @06:25PM (5 children)
According to research at Wageningen University in .nl, it isn't dramatically more complex than adding water.
In experiments using Martian and Lunar soil simulant with chemistry based on probe data, plants will germinate in regolith and water, but are stunted because of macro-nutrient shortages. Adding fertilizer and/or carbon and/or post-mammalian-biomass helps the growth rate significantly. One of their big concerns was leaching of heavy metals, but tests of the crops indicate metal levels are within the acceptable range.
This is cool research. If you want to play with it too, you can get Lunar and Martian* regolith simulant for a reasonable fee online.
* available both with and without perchlorate salts.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday April 06 2018, @06:43PM (4 children)
See, that's the thing, it's a soil simulant
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Sunday April 08 2018, @04:59PM (3 children)
I'm in complete agreement there. If we get to Mars and there is something chemically in the regolith that prevents plant growth we'll have to do something clever (or die.)
I'm less concerned about this than the problem that Mars' water reserves are unproven and unknown. Given sufficient energy we can make the stuff required to grow plants from toxic regolith, but without a source of hydrogen (preferably water) colonization just can't happen.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday April 09 2018, @12:43AM (2 children)
Personally, I see the energy problem above anything else.
Worse can me to worst, Mars is cold enough to have most of the salts in a hydrated form. For CO2, I suspect there will be enough carbonates to decompose and, as rarefied as it is, Mars atmosphere is mostly CO2 (with nitrogen coming second).
I think some form of small size sealed fission reactors landed on Mars before the first colonists arrive may do the trick. Not gonna happen without a serious lift capability, as small as those compact reactors may be, I expect will be in the 10-100 tons [456fis.org] range.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Thursday April 12 2018, @03:53PM (1 child)
Agreed. After you solve the problem of getting there alive Energy is a huge problem. The solar answer is a bit scary because of dust storms.
I've been thinking about this for a while and may have a way to add some redundancy here with a relatively small investment in launch mass. We're already planning to send ISRU methane and LOX generation and storage facilities. If we also ship a fuel cell that can consume those then that gives us backup generation capabilities. If the storage system has enough capacity then pure solar may be an option.
It would be a fairly significant constraint for high energy input systems like foundries though.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday April 12 2018, @09:53PM
Solar constants drops with the square of distance to the Sun. On Mars orbit, one has 586W/sqm.
Storage systems are reliant on electrochemistry - those batteries have a bad habit of refusing to work at low temperatures - one will need to place them underground, which means a need of enough energy available to dig the hole in the first place.
This sounds a bit strange: are you involved in a project to send a colony to Mars soon or are you using a generic "we" in the above?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford