How will Hyroponics help us with Space Travel?

Right now is a very exciting time for space travel.

Just a couple of weeks ago, NASA and related contractors launched the newest mission into space aimed at eventually reaching Mars and one of its moons. These kinds of activities are groundbreaking, and they’re setting milestones in an industry that seemed dormant after the space wars of the 1980s.

At the same time, new contenders are emerging.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX company is now competing with government contractors like Lockheed Martin to do more with space travel and develop possibilities for exploring more of our universe.

Space Needs

Peoples’ needs in space are much different from their needs at home on the earth.

You can point to such basic differences as the difference in gravity -- but there's also the daily differences in how people live, and what they eat, and then how they facilitate basic body processes.

Space and Food

You've seen those interesting kinds of things associated with 1980s space travel, like Tang, astronaut ice cream andold tube- packaged foods -- but what are astronauts doing these days to provide for their diet in space?

One of the big things that's getting a lot of attention is hydroponics. Hydroponic gardening can be a way to grow plants inside a space vehicle or space station, to get actual healthy green herbs for those who are living outside of the earth’s atmosphere.

Hydroponics in Space

Hydroponics outside of the Earth's atmosphere is different than the kinds of home and commercial systems we use down here on earth. Reservoirs and other parts of the system have to be adequately sealed, so that water does not escape - because with the lack of gravity, the water will not stay calmly in the reservoir like it does under the Earth's gravity.

Aside from this, lots of other aspects of hydroponics are similar. Scientists are looking at how astronauts can use a simple combination of water and nutrients to grow their own plants and start cultivating a lot of our native vegetables and herbs far beyond the boundaries of our world.

All of this is really exciting. There's a lot more study and research -- and it's likely to be front and center in the news as we start a second wave of space exploration and try to facilitate processes to make our world and sphere of influence larger than just our own planet. Take a look at what hydroponics can do both in space and here at home to provide green food for the world.