As severe weather, growing populations, and the global pandemic continue to put a strain on the world’s food supply, cutting-edge researchers are looking to outer space as a potential solution.
Issues with the food supply have come into focus in the past year, as some of the world’s less developed regions have struggled with everything from locust swarms to flooding. Amid natural catastrophes, COVID-19 has disrupted supply chains and transportation systems, causing an increase in food prices. If these trends continue, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that more than 840 million people could be food-insecure by 2030.
As scientists continue to innovate, some have found the extreme conditions of outer space an interesting environment for experimentation. Earth’s weather is becoming increasingly erratic and extreme, and scientists say that we must learn how to grow food in these challenging conditions and better monitor crops. Outer space offers exciting opportunities to test new technologies and ideas for growing plants in places once only dreamed about in science fiction.
Can We Grow Plants On Mars?
In the movies, yes—and maybe someday in real life, too.
Actor Matt Damon brought the idea of cultivating potatoes on Mars to life in the 2015 science fiction film The Martian, in which Damon’s character—an astronaut with a background in botany who is stranded on Mars—survives by planting potato pieces in the planet’s red soil, eventually growing enough to eat for months. This on-screen adventure, along with the hardiness of potatoes, inspired scientists to open the International Potato Center (CIP). Here, NASA scientists are working with researchers to figure out how to grow potatoes on Earth, in Mars-like conditions.
“The initiative came from CIP, with the intention of solving problems around cropping in desert areas as a result of climate change and desertification,” NASA researcher Julio Valdivia-Silva told a media outlet. “Meanwhile, NASA was interested in the project for the need to grow crops in future human colonies outside Earth.”
The potatoes were grown in a CubeSat, a box that can be launched in a rocket and contains water hoses, pumps, LED lights, and technology to recreate the temperatures, light cycles, gases, and air pressure on Mars. The tubers were planted in inhospitable soil from the Pampas del la Joya desert in Peru, and the box was sealed.
The results were promising, and scientists have continued experimenting with different varieties of potatoes. They hope to identify the hardiest types and the minimum conditions needed for a potato to grow. While positive results fuel hopes for a viable Martian colony someday, they also indicate that hardy potato crops could help stabilize the food supply in areas severely impacted by climate change.
Managing Land and Water from Space
As food-insecure areas around the world live through cycles of droughts, space satellites are offering a way to monitor water systems and collect data to use this precious natural resource most efficiently.
The technology is based on two types of remote sensors that are attached to satellites. Active sensors emit radiation toward a target area, then measure how the radiation reflects off the target. Passive sensors detect natural radiation (primarily reflected sunlight) from its target areas. Current and future remote sensor missions are investigating everything from satellite data that could improve the accuracy of predicting severe weather, to high-resolution data that will help water resource managers lessen the impact of draughts. Another project monitors uncultivated land so that relief can be provided quickly in case of emergency.
Unexpected Benefits
While a lot of space agriculture research is conducted to find more sustainable ways for astronauts, and eventually colonizers, to survive in outer space, scientists say their experiments also yield benefits for agriculture on Earth.
“When you conduct research, you discover a lot of things you weren’t specifically looking for,” Bruce Bugbee, a Utah State University botanist, told the publication Successful Farming. “It was originally NASA technology that made people think of developing indoor agriculture and growing plants without sunlight. It’s also the case with the sensing technology being used in drones to monitor plant health.”
Another example is scientists’ observations of the root density in space greenhouses, which is much higher than that of crops grown in fields. Space-grown plants are teaching scientists how to manage the water and nutrients needed in crops’ root zones, and they are already using the data to improve agriculture. Farmers are learning, for example, how to improve nitrogen efficiency and the timing of pesticide application in irrigated field crops.
Scientists are optimistic about what future experimentation in space could teach us about farming on Earth. What if we discover a new bacteria that could help Iowa corn fix nitrogen?” Bugbee said. “That would be huge for Earth.”