NASA shows the 33 day harvest of space station LED

The astronauts will show their space planting plants at the international space station (photo source: NASA).

Finally, fresh plants planted in the space microgravity environment officially boarded the NASA astronauts' menu. Team members of the expedition 44 group, including the Scott Kelly, who have been stationed for a year, are ready to display their harvest in August 10th: the space version of the red robe vine lettuce. These red romaine lettuce are grown from the track laboratory system.

Before starting, the astronauts will disinfect the leaf with citric acid base food grade safety disinfectant. They will eat half of the harvest, and the other half will be packed and frozen to bring back to earth for scientific analysis.

NASA's plant experiment, named Veg-01, is used to study the operation and growth efficiency of planting vegetables in space orbit and the "cultivation bag" with seeds and roots.

NASA continues to spawn the space station's vegetable technology to provide the future food source for sustainable development of astronauts, a very important part of manned Mars mission. As NASA embarks on a long-range space exploration mission and goes deeper into the solar system, vegetables will be an important source of food for astronauts. It can also be used as a recreational activity for astronauts in outer space missions. Before planting, seeds have been standing in space for 15 months. The first cultivation kit was launched in May 2014, and was trained and watered by Steve Swanson, the flight engineer of the expedition 39 group. Stephen After 33 days of growth, he succeeded in harvesting and returned to the Kennedy Aerospace Center in October 2014 and accepted food safety analysis. Second Veg-01 cultivation bags were opened in July 8th, and Kelly was responsible for planting 33 days and harvesting.

NASA plans to grow edible plants in outer space and other planets as astronauts' food supplies. (photo source: NASA)

The vegetable growing system was developed by ORBITEC at Wisconsin and was tested in the Kennedy Aerospace Center before entering space. Vegetables and two packages of vines planted with vine seeds and a group of them were sent to the space station in April 2014 with the SpaceX mission.

The detachable and extensible vegetable unit is made up of a shallow flat. LED red, blue, green and three colors are used for plant growth and convenient observation. The concept of using LED lamps to plant plants can be traced back to the 1990s NASA plan. The senior maintenance plan was led by Dr. Ray Wheeler and developed at the research and Technology Office of Kennedy at Weller.

Dr. Weller worked with engineers and an innovative research project team from the US orbital technology center to develop a vegetable growing system. Gioia Gioia (Massa) is a scientist with NASA in Kennedy. Dr. Marsha and his team developed the space plant unit and tested it to ensure that it can grow in space. The purple / pink light coming from the plant system is derived from a combination of red and blue lights, designed to produce more light than green LED lights. At the same time, add green LED light to illuminate, under the purple light, it makes people feel a little strange appearance, make the plant look more like something to eat. Weller said: "the wavelength of blue and red is the basic condition for plant growth. They should be the most efficient colors to convert electricity into light energy. Green LED helps to enhance the visual effects of plants on humans, but actually does not produce as much light as red and blue lights.

From 2010 to 2011, Dr. Weller, Marsha and G ary Stutte had conducted similar experiments in the desert area of Arizona in NASA's environmental training unit (Habitat Demonstration Unit), and cultivated plants in ary. Dr Weller said the planting system will help NASA learn more about planting plants in controlled agricultural environments. Similar settings include vertical agriculture. This planting method is to plant hydroponic crops in a cascaded manner, and use red and blue LED lights as the light source. Such systems are popular in some Asian countries, and the United States has begun to follow up planting.

Weller pointed out: "evidence shows that tomatoes, blueberries and red lettuce are all good sources of antioxidants. If we can get such food in space, it will help people's mood and reduce the effect of space radiation on them. " After the first batch of lettuce was harvested and sent back to the space station, Marsha began working with a team of flight doctors and security representatives from NASA to get the astronauts to eat the crops. "The results of microbial food safety analysis of Veg-01 romaine lettuce seem to be very good," Marsha said. In addition to the nutritional value, planting plants in space has a positive effect on the psychological level of astronauts? NASA is studying at Yali Shan Da Vermeer, a scientist at Johnson Space Center in Houston, trying to find out the answer.

Vermeer is a scientist in behavioral health and performance studies, who is involved in NASA's human research program. Her team is committed to studying the psychological risks of reducing Mars manned missions. Vermeer pointed out: "vegetable planting experiment is currently our research, the only focus on assessing the impact of planting plants on human beings in outer space." Her team is committed to studying the behavior, performance degradation, team communication and psychological adjustment of space crew. Vermeer described: "future space missions may have as many as 6 astronauts living in a confined space for a long time, and there is limited opportunity for communication between them. We understand that it is very important to provide training for the astronauts to have enough contingency measures.

Resilience may involve meaningful work. Environmental changes also include plant life. Vermeer said that research on Earth shows that plants can remind people of healthy life and excellent performance. Plants are also likely to become the contingency measures needed to participate in long space missions.

Marsha agreed: "astronauts can grow and eat fresh food, and plant plants may also be psychologically positive. When a supply ship arrives at the space station, the astronaut team can really eat some fresh fruits and vegetables like carrots and apples. But the number is limited, and the fill must be eaten as quickly as possible. "

There is something green around us - an object from the earth - which may have great value and positive influence on the astronauts who live and work in extremely high pressure. Marsha said: "the longer and longer the humans leave the earth, the greater the need to plant plants as food, air circulation and heart help. I think the vegetable growing system will become an important element in long distance space exploration. The system can also potentially help improve the plant yield and biomass production of the earth, thereby bringing benefits to mankind. Marsha said that NASA's knowledge from the vegetable growing system can be applied to urban plant factories and other agro related situations with artificial lighting and water conservation as the theme.

"We hope to increase plant species in the future, which will help us learn more about the growth of plants in microgravity. We will conduct experiments in the future to assess the effects of light quality on plant nutrition and taste on earth and in space.

The team at the Kennedy and Jansen aviation center hopes that the planting system and space planting will become a valuable and vital life on the air station and Mars. (compile / China LED net emmachang)

For more LED related information, please click on China LED net or pay attention to WeChat public account (cnledw2013).