NASA's Space Greenhouse
If the United States decides to send astronauts to Mars, it will need 18 months-worth of food to feed them. So that's why NASA s testing mini space greenhouses.
Discovery News reports a team from Kennedy Space Center is tending to a greenhouse in Arizona, with the goal of getting the system ready for a test run aboard the International Space Station. The unit, built by Wisconsin-based Orbital Technologies, is designed to be lightweight, energy-efficient and low maintenance.
Light for the plants comes from a combination of red, green and blue LEDs. The growing medium contains seeds and time-release fertilizer. Water wicks passively through the system.
"It has held up very well," NASA's lead scientist Ray Wheeler says. "We didn't have any failures."
Learn more about the project here.
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