NASA Is Growing A Space Garden

NASA Space Garden

NASA Space Garden

Updated on 3/27/2024
Emma DowneyBy Emma Downey
Gardening Expert
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We will want to take plants with us as we go to other planets as humans for both aesthetic and functional reasons. We already know from our pioneering astronauts that the International Space gardens and fresh flowers create a lovely ambiance and allow us to take a small portion of Earth with us on our voyages. On Earth and in space, they are advantageous for our psychological health, and they are also essential for maintaining astronauts' health throughout protracted flights.

Sailors could have scurvy with just a vitamin C deficiency, and vitamin shortages can result in a variety of additional health issues. Multivitamins alone won't be sufficient to keep astronauts healthy as they explore outer space, and they will require fresh food.

Currently, resupply flights keep the astronauts aboard the space station well stocked. To meet their nutritional demands, they receive regular shipments of a wide variety of freeze-dried and packed meals. Prepackaged vitamins degrade over time, which poses a health risk to astronauts when crews journey deeper into space and go months or years without resupply supplies.

NASA is investigating ways to give astronauts access to nutrients in newly cultivated fruits and vegetables, which are long-lasting and simple to ingest. How to accomplish that in a dimly lit, the gravity-free world is the tricky part.

NASA Space Garden

NASA Space Garden

The Vegetable Production System

A space garden called Veggie, or the Vegetable Production System, is located aboard the space station. In addition to improving the astronauts' nourishment, happiness, and well-being aboard the orbiting laboratory, Veggie's goal is to assist NASA in studying plant growth in microgravity. The vegetable garden normally has six plants and is about the size of a carry-on bag. Every plant develops in its own "pillow" of fertilizer and growth medium made of clay. The cushions are essential for helping to evenly distribute water, nutrients, and air around the roots. Otherwise, the roots would either be swallowed by air or drown in water due to the tendency of fluids in space to form bubbles.

Light is one environmental component that plants employ to orient and direct growth in the absence of gravity. Above the plants, a bank of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) emits a spectrum of light that is ideal for the growth of the plants. The Veggie chamber often glows magenta pink because of plants' high levels of green light reflection and increased utilization of red and blue wavelengths.

NASA Space Garden

NASA Space Garden

Three different species of lettuce, Chinese cabbage, mizuna mustard, red Russian kale, and zinnia flowers are just a few of the plants that Veggie has successfully cultivated so far. Scott Kelly, an astronaut, was particularly fond of the flowers. He chose a bouquet and took a picture of it floating in the cupola against the backdrop of the Earth. The crew members gathered and consumed some of the plants, and the remainder was collected for analysis and sent back to Earth. One issue was potentially hazardous microorganisms developing on the produce. The food has been safe (and tasty) for the staff to eat thus far, with no dangerous contamination having been found.

Future plans by our team at the Kennedy Space Center include expanding the planting of fruits and vegetables like tomatoes and peppers. The additional benefit of offering some space radiation protection to crew members who eat foods like berries, certain legumes, and other antioxidant-rich foods.

Modern Plant Habitat

Like Veggie, the Advanced Plant Habitat (APH) is a growth chamber station for studying plants. It uses LED lights and a porous clay substrate with controlled release fertilizer to get water, nutrients, and oxygen to the plant roots.

NASA Space Garden

NASA Space Garden

Contrary to Veggie, it is contained and automated with cameras and more than 180 sensors that are in continual interactive contact with a team at Kennedy, so the crew doesn't have to give it much attention on a daily basis. Its temperature, atmospheric content, moisture levels, and water distribution are all automatically controlled. It contains more LED light colors than Veggie; in addition to red, green, and blue lights, it also has white, far red, and even infrared lights to enable imaging at night.

When a crop is ready for research investigations, the crew takes samples from the plants, freezes or chemically fixes them to preserve them, and sends them back to Earth to be analyzed. This helps scientists understand how space affects plants' growth and development.

Arabidopsis thaliana, sometimes known as the "white mouse of the plant study world," and dwarf wheat were used in APH's initial test run aboard the space station in the spring of 2018. A widely shared time-lapse video of this was posted on social media by the space station.

The Arabidopsis Gravitational Response Omics (Arabidopsis-GRO) collaborative study, which will be the first to use APH, is being led by Dr. Norman Lewis. He and his colleagues are particularly curious about what transpires to plants in space at the gene, protein, and metabolite level, as well as what changes take place and why.

NASA Space Garden

NASA Space Garden

The connection between plant lignin content and microgravity is a crucial subject they seek to resolve. The functions of lignins in plants are most similar to those of bones in humans, and they enable plants to stand upright against gravity and provide them with structure and rigidity. Because there are fewer physical demands in space, we already know that humans lose bone and muscle mass. Okay, what about lignins?

Lewis and his team also want to know whether plants that have had their lignin levels reduced through genetic engineering can survive and function correctly in space. This could give plants grown in space a number of benefits, such as greater nutrient absorption when consumed by people and simpler composting of plant waste. Our plans for deep space travel and colonization, according to Lewis and his team, will be guided by this fundamental scientific knowledge.

Lewis is aware of how far space research has progressed and that the possibilities that lie ahead were previously only a realm of science fiction!

Canisters For Biological Research

NASA Space Garden

NASA Space Garden

Yeast and other microorganisms tiny enough to thrive on Petri dishes are studied in the Biological Research in Canisters (BRIC) facility. The most recent version, BRIC-LED, includes light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to support biological organisms, including plants, mosses, algae, and cyanobacteria that depend on light to produce their food.

Hardware validation tests are currently being performed on BRIC-LED. Scientists want to perform system checks and make sure the LEDs don't get too hot for the plants. We will use it to conduct experiments soon by academics, including Dr. Simon Gilroy of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Gilroy is interested in how spatial variation in Arabidopsis plant gene expression is influenced. According to Gilroy, "Arabidopsis has been the subject of literally thousands of experiments on Earth." "Cold shiver. I contacted them. Not give them water. Water in excess. They shouted at them, "he chuckles. "  All of those databases are accessible to us. We thus investigate any patterns that have been identified and discover how events on Earth mirror those in space.

Some trends, like when the genes connected to gravity change, are anticipated. Gilroy, though, has noticed two trends that relate to the plant's defense mechanisms.

NASA Space Garden

NASA Space Garden

The oxidation appears to be putting the plants under more stress. A highly reactive oxygen-based compound is produced by normal cellular chemistry. This "reactive oxygen species" can damage mitochondria or interact improperly with the machinery that fixes DNA if it is not under control. The cells in a healthy plant have mechanisms for handling it. Plants are producing more of it in space, though.

The second pattern is that immune system-related genes alternately turn on and off in space. The capacity of those plants to fend against pathogens may be compromised, according to scientists.

Additionally, there are ad hoc proof that suggests plants in outer space might be having trouble warding off diseases. The zinnias in Veggie once became a touch overwatered, and there wasn't enough airflow. Some of the plants died as a fungus began to grow on them. In order to get the remaining plants to blossom, astronaut Scott Kelly carefully removed the fungus. It might have been an accident, but it made one wonder if the zinnia's health was being compromised by space.

Scientists prefer to use BRIC-LED gene expression experiments to deceive plants into thinking they are in danger rather than purposefully injuring them to explore this notion. They achieve this by interfering with the plants' protein sensors, which are continually on the search for bacteria.

NASA Space Garden

NASA Space Garden

Flagella, a whip-like structure used by bacteria to aid in swimming, is all made up of the same sequence of 22 amino acids known as "flag-22." The defense systems of plants activate the moment they detect flag-22, which they are constantly searching for. We can spray the plants with a safe solution from flag-22 scientists. Gilroy says, "The plant panics and believes it is being assaulted."

In the BRIC-LED experiment, small plants are grown for ten days before receiving a flag-22 spray. After the plants have had an hour to defend themselves, scientists spray them with a chemical fixative to halt any biological activity. The plants are additionally placed in a deep freeze since this fixative does a wonderful job of keeping the plants' responsive condition. Later, after being ground up and returned to Earth, the plants are subjected to RNA extraction and analysis.

Gilroy intends to gain more knowledge on how a plant's health is impacted by space in this way. He claims the patterns will indicate whether or not the plant defense mechanism is functioning properly.

Research like this will assist NASA in better understanding how to maintain plants in space and permit long-duration missions.