When humans venture deeper into space, they won’t just need fuel for their rockets -they’ll need fuel for their bodies. NASA is not just bringing high-tech gear and freeze-dried meals to space – now, they are also bringing plants, including those with plant proteins.
History has shown that even a single missing nutrient – like vitamin C – can have devastating effects, as seen with sailors who suffered from scurvy. In space, the stakes are just as high. While astronauts on the International Space Station receive regular shipments of freeze-dried and prepackaged meals packed with essential vitamins, that luxury won’t exist on missions lasting months or even years. Over time, vitamins in stored food break down, making it harder to maintain long-term health.
NASA is working to solve this challenge by growing fresh fruits and vegetables in space – nutrient-rich, long-lasting, and naturally absorbed by the body. But growing food in a sealed spacecraft, without sunlight or gravity, is no small feat. The future of deep-space exploration may depend on cracking this puzzle.
Veggie: NASA’s Mini Garden Growing Fresh Food in Space
Floating high above Earth, the International Space Station (ISS) is home to an innovative space garden called Veggie – a compact plant growth system designed to study how plants adapt to microgravity while providing astronauts with fresh food and a morale boost.
Roughly the size of a carry-on suitcase, Veggie can hold up to six plants at a time. Instead of traditional soil, each plant grows in a small “pillow” filled with a clay-based growth medium and fertilizer. These pillows play a crucial role in distributing water, air, and nutrients evenly – without them, fluids in space would either drown the roots or leave them completely dry due to microgravity’s quirky effects.
Since plants in space can’t rely on gravity to grow upright, they use light as their guide. A set of specialized LED lights provides the ideal spectrum for growth, emitting red and blue wavelengths that plants absorb best. As a result, the Veggie chamber glows a striking magenta pink – a futuristic glow for a garden helping to shape the future of deep-space exploration.
So far, NASA’s Veggie experiment has successfully cultivated a diverse range of plants aboard the space station, including three types of lettuce, Chinese cabbage, mizuna mustard, and red Russian kale. Even flowers have flourished in microgravity – most notably zinnias, which became a favourite of astronaut Scott Kelly. He even picked a floating bouquet and captured a stunning photo of it against Earth’s backdrop from the station’s cupola.
Some of the space-grown crops were harvested and enjoyed by astronauts, while others were sent back to Earth for analysis. One key concern has been the risk of harmful microbes contaminating the produce. Fortunately, testing has found no dangerous contamination so far, making the fresh-grown food both safe and satisfying for the crew.
Advanced Plant Habitat: A High-Tech Space Garden
The Advanced Plant Habitat (APH) is a plant growth chamber aboard the space station, designed for plant research much like Veggie. However, unlike Veggie, APH is fully enclosed and highly automated, requiring minimal astronaut involvement.
Using LED lights and a porous clay substrate with controlled-release fertilizer, APH efficiently delivers water, nutrients, and oxygen to plant roots. Its advanced system includes over 180 sensors and built-in cameras, constantly relaying data to a ground team at NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre. This automation controls everything – water distribution, atmosphere composition, moisture levels, and temperature – ensuring optimal growth conditions.
APH also features a wider spectrum of LED lighting, including red, green, blue, white, far-red, and infrared wavelengths, enabling nighttime imaging for round-the-clock plant monitoring. Once plants are ready for harvest, astronauts collect samples, freeze or chemically preserve them, and send them back to Earth for analysis – helping scientists uncover how spaceflight impacts plant growth and development.
Dr. Norman Lewis leads the Arabidopsis Gravitational Response Omics (Arabidopsis-GRO) consortium study, the first research project to utilize the Advanced Plant Habitat (APH). His team is particularly focused on understanding how plants adapt to space conditions at the genetic, protein, and metabolite levels, uncovering the changes that occur and the reasons behind them.
Engaging the community
NASA has granted a total of $1.25 million to three U.S. teams in the final phase of the Deep Space Food Challenge. These teams developed innovative food production technologies designed to support long-duration human space missions with safe, nutritious, and flavourful meals.
Their solutions aim to meet NASA’s need for sustainable food systems in extended space habitation, including future Artemis missions and potential journeys to Mars. Additionally, these advanced food systems could have valuable applications on Earth, helping regions affected by natural disasters, food insecurity, and extreme environmental conditions.
Interstellar Lab of Merritt Island, Florida, has been named the U.S. winner, receiving the $750,000 grand prize. Led by Barbara Belvisi, this small business integrates multiple autonomous phytotrons and climate-controlled greenhouses to create a self-sustaining food production system that cultivates fresh vegetables, microgreens, and nutrient-rich insects.
Two runners-up were awarded $250,000 each for their innovative food systems: Nolux from Riverside, California, and SATED from Boulder, Colorado.
Nolux, a university team led by Robert Jinkerson, developed an artificial photosynthesis system capable of producing plant- and fungal-based foods without relying on natural photosynthesis.
SATED – short for Safe Appliance, Tidy, Efficient & Delicious—is the brainchild of solo innovator Jim Sears. His system offers a customizable range of fire-safe foods, from pizza to peach cobbler, crafted using long-shelf-life and locally sourced ingredients.
Turning to Fungi for Sustainable Space Food
Chicago-based alternative protein company Nature’s Fynd has joined forces with NASA to explore new ways of producing nutritious, sustainable protein for space missions. As part of this collaboration, a protein bioreactor developed by Nature’s Fynd was launched into orbit aboard SpaceX-25, aiming to revolutionize food production beyond Earth.
On our planet, this bioreactor technology has already demonstrated its ability to efficiently convert simple feedstocks – such as vegetation and excess plant material -into high-protein fungi. Now, the space-based study will test how well this process works in the microgravity and radiation conditions of low-Earth orbit on the International Space Station (ISS).
“We are seeing the possibilities of exploration beyond our planet brought to life just this week by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Today, we’re thrilled to announce our role in the revolutionary NASA research to develop a safe, efficient, and robust system for producing fresh food in space,” said Thomas Jonas, CEO and Co-Founder of Nature’s Fynd.
NASA EPSCoR Project Manager Jeppie Compton emphasized the significance of the project, stating, “Each of these projects has the potential to contribute to critical innovations in human spaceflight on the International Space Station and beyond. We’re very impressed with the ideas put forward in these investigation concepts and look forward to seeing how these technologies perform.”
If successful, this breakthrough could pave the way for self-sustaining protein production in space, ensuring that future astronauts have access to fresh, nutrient-rich food on long-duration missions.
What do NASA and VALPRO Path have in common?
- Both initiatives aim to create efficient, sustainable food production methods. While NASA is working on growing plants in space, VALPRO Path is focusing on boosting plant protein production on Earth, contributing to food security and climate resilience.
- Space missions require closed-loop, resource-efficient food systems, much like the sustainable agricultural practices VALPRO Path is promoting in Europe.
- Just as NASA needs independent protein sources for space missions, Europe is striving for self-sufficiency in plant-based protein to reduce reliance on imports and improve food sovereignty. This is exactly the mission of VALPRO Path
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