The prospect of growing plants in outer space has been one of the subjects touched upon by the recent movie "The Martian," an adaptation of Andy Weiss' book about man's survival in Mars.
The protagonist in the movie, a botanist played by Matt Damon, had to come up with a way to produce food to help him survive until help arrives. He figures out a way to grow potatoes using Mar's soil and his feces.
Scientists commented that the possibility of space farming as shown in the movie is not very far from reality. In fact, it is being done already.
Bruce Bugbee, the director of the plants, soil and climate department at Utah State University, has been working hand in hand with NASA in growing food in space for the last decade. Bugbee told Tech Crunch that they have been growing salad crops that also help recycle water.
The success of this project has been the subject of a post by NASA.gov which says that the six astronauts who are currently living on the International Space Station (ISS) were the first ones to have tasted food that were grown in space.
Although NASA gave Bugbee's project its support, he still needs more funding to continue his study. He said that he currently has $24,000 budgeted for the project, which would only be good for six months.
NASA is said to be spending $10,000 just to provide a pound of food for ISS, which makes Space Farming a perfect solution for supplying food for its crew. Bugbee also said that growing plants in space can help in cleaning the air in the space cabin aside from cutting down costs.
Meanwhile, a proposal was given by SpaceX and Tesla head Elon Musk to send a greenhouse full of edible plants to Mars. According to him, the idea of turning the red planet into a green habitable place would encourage people to continue the pursuit of space exploration for human habitation.
