Hydroponics In Space

Some people think gardening is a challenge down here on good old planet earth. Imagine trying to grow vegetables in zero gravity instead. Or, what about attempting to grow prize winning orchids on the moon? Wouldn’t that be something? Yet, as science pushes to be able to keep man in space longer and transport him further and further away from the earth, this raises some questions about the best way to provide astronauts with enough food for such a trip.

For extremely long missions, one might think to entertain the idea of trying to grow food on a manned space craft. However, suitable soil may not be available on such a journey, not to mention that without gravity it would be tricky to water plants. Also, plants tend to depend on gravity to impose a direction on the way their roots grow. And even in a low gravity environment, such as the moon, there is always the matter of extremes in temperature, UV radiation, and other factors which would make it impossible to leave plants to the mercy of the elements of such a place and expect good results.

However, institutions like NASA have tossed around the idea that the use of hydroponic gardening methods may be a more realistic solution. This is especially true since it may not be practical to transport large amounts of soil during a mission to the far reaches of deep space. One of the major advantages of going with hydroponic methods over conventional agricultural methods is that this approach tends to conserve space better. However, we are often rewarded with larger than normal plant sizes and these plants tend to be healthier than plants grown using conventional methods. Aside from this being beneficial to a healthy diet in deep space, on board plant growth can benefit astronauts by removing toxic levels of carbon dioxide from the air within the ship and return oxygen as a byproduct. Thus, giving rise to the idea of developing bio-regenerative life support systems for use during long space missions. So, it is possible to see how incorporating hydroponics with current technology could potentially help humanity boldly go where no one has gone before.

Grow Guide