London: After cultivating lettuce in space three years ago, crew members aboard the International Space Station could be growing beans in 2021, a new research suggests.
The beans could be planted in high-tech planters developed at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).
The planters can regulate all the water, nutrients, gas and air the plants need. NTNU said it was collaborating with Italian and French researchers in their quest to cultivate plant-based food for long space journeys.
The food grown in space could be crucial to sustain the crew in future deep space missions.
The longest stays at the International Space Station have been six months, while people travelling to Mars will need to be prepared to stay in space for at least a year.
The European Space Agency plans to build a lunar base in 2030 as a stopover on the way to Mars. Nasa plans to fly directly to the planet with a target landing date of 2030.
In the study, published in the journal Life, the researchers performed three experiments — the first two experiments determined the effect of restricted rooting and nutrient solution volumes, and based on this a third experiment was performed to assess plant responses to various nitrate nutrient solution concentrations.
“We found that plants can, in a way, ‘smell’ the amount of nutrients available to them. When the nitrogen concentration is very low, the plant will absorb more water and thus more nitrogen until it reaches an optimal level,” said Silje Wolff, a plant physiologist at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Space (CIRiS), which is part of NTNU Social Research. — IANS
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