GARDENING
In the movie The Martiancharacter Mark Watney, an astronaut stranded on Mars by his crewmates after a mishap, awakens to face the problems of survival alone. He plants potatoes in Martian dirt mixed with soil brought from Earth and fertilized by his own waste. Through grit and intelligence, he survives until NASA returns to rescue him.
In the movie The Martian, Matt Damon’s character, Mark Watney, plants potatoes in a mixture of Mars’ dirt and human waste.
(© Cinematic/Alamy Stock Photo)
Would this be possible in real life? “Sort of,” says Gioia Massa, a scientist at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Massa says the movie portrays Mars inaccurately when it shows light levels strong enough to grow plants and when it ignores the fact that plant life would be harmed by surface contaminants.
But, thanks to efforts by Massa and her NASA colleagues, astronauts on the International Space Station are growing some fruits and vegetables.
ISS astronauts harvest the first chile peppers on the space station.
(NASA)
NASA hopes to grow “anything you can pick and eat fresh,” says Massa, and especially “to supplement the [astronauts’] package diet with fresh vegetables.”
Astronauts from many countries work together to care for the space station’s garden. They water vegetables, monitor leaves for mold and document the plants’ growth for scientists back on Earth. “Japanese astronauts, French astronauts, Canadian astronauts, UAE astronauts do some of our activities up there,” Massa says. They all contribute to growing data.
The NASA-led program has grown leafy greens on the space station, in addition to radishes, chile peppers and tomatoes. (The tomatoes have not been completely successful, and astronauts are “learning a lot on that one,” Massa says.) Even flowers — zinnias — have grown in space.
Meanwhile on Earth, scientists run tests to figure out how to grow new plants — such as legumes, herbs, strawberries, cucumbers and melons — in microgravity. (Recently, NASA has teamed up with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to plan how to grow basil and broccoli microgreens in space.)
NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei prepares for the routine debris removal procedure for the chile peppers in the Advanced Plant Habitat on the ISS.
(NASA)
Several years ago, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly was tasked with monitoring zinnia flowers growing on the space station. One morning, he called Earth to report that there was mold growing on the leaves, and after short deliberations, he cut off the affected leaves and stored them in a freezer until they could be returned to Earth for study. Kelly wiped the remaining plants and turned up fans to increase air flow, and the zinnias continued to grow without further problem. In fact, Kelly picked the flowers just in time for Valentine’s Day and made a bouquet out of them to decorate the station.
Kelly used his intuition and relied on his own gardening experience, rather than an overly scientific or data-driven approach. “You know, I think if we’re going to Mars, and we were growing stuff, we would be responsible for deciding when the stuff needed water,” he told the ground team.
“ Kind of like in my backyard, I look at it and say, ‘Oh, maybe I should water the grass today.’ I think this is how this should be handled.”
— Scott Kelly, NASA astronaut
Growing crops in space benefits farmers on Earth. For instance, vertical farms — typically indoor walls of plants that rely upon hydroponic technologies and LED lights — could benefit from research on the space station, where the concept is used for a food program.
In fact, NASA built the first vertical farm in the United States, and certain specific LED lights for growing plants were the brainchild of NASA experts.
Diane Wheeler checks a chart after pruning a row of tomatoes at the Backyard Farms greenhouse in Madison, Maine. It is one of the largest hydroponic greenhouses in New England.
(© Robert F. Bukaty/AP)
What astronauts learn about sustainability and staying healthy on the space station can help us improve life on Earth, Massa says.