A new research project has been instigated by the European astronauts to attempt an experiment of food harvesting in Mars and Moon.
The entire project has a timeline of 10 years, which is headed by Norway’s researchers. The researchers will gather the study based on food cultivation process in the outer space and figure out the possible benefits that the plants will give out to the potential astronauts in the form of food and air; reported by Sky News.
A member of the research team Ann-Iren Kittang Jost believes that in future, they could be catered with all the necessary measures for food harvesting over Mars and the Moon but it will take some time to attain it.
She said that the research team is avoiding issuing any official statement regarding the exact timeframe for real food cultivation process to a greater extent in the space as we are in starting phase and only few groundwork measures have been taken up till now. Jost even explained that they haven’t still cleared which genres of plant should be considered for creating the basis for food, but certain foods are in their priority checklist such as soybeans, cherry, lettuce and tomatoes.
The purpose of this research project is to save high cost that is incurred on astronauts for the 30kg of water, food consumption and filtered air each day, which is transferred from Earth.
She added that the food cropping of multifaceted organism is a difficult task and it needs more research as a result of uncertainty in the microgravity present in the space station.
The biggest and the most critical part of the entire project is to assess the accurate amount of water, fertilizer and other nutrients which dole out under low gravity environment, as they have experienced that a stationary film of air created encircles the plants, which enables them to stay alive and breathe the same air as they do on earth.
