Astrobotany: the connection between space exploration and ecological life

It doesn’t matter if you like aquaponics; farming; Gardening or anything else green, believe me there is a connection to space exploration, and not just one, but several. This will only be a brief overview, otherwise this article would be too long. ok, let’s start.

If we’re going to do long-term space travel and colonization, we have to feed the crew. Period. As simple as that. As you can imagine, endless supply lines with cargo ships will not be enough. It’s just not practical. We need something on site, like here on earth, something recyclable and something that doesn’t need a lot of replenishment. That is where aquaculture, more specifically aquaponics, comes into play. A closed-loop aquaponics system can produce the necessary vegetables and a variety of seafood, doesn’t need many “fillers” and powered by solar panels, it will be almost self-sufficient. Like I said before, we’ll get into the details with other articles down the road.

Now let’s take a look at farming and gardening in space. Aquaponics is fine, but we also need sustainable food production at any colony site. Of course, at first it will probably be more of a landscaping scale, rather than a large farming operation. Of course, there is the question of soil availability and quality. However, with new technology and a bit of soil twisting available, it won’t be too difficult to produce healthy and resilient growing beds. A few flowers to brighten up the decoration would also be nice. NASA, several universities and private space companies have already begun experiments in this direction.

Last but not least, the energy problem. It’s plain and simple, that we need a constant supply of renewable energy for all of those things to happen. Solar panels are a fact, but let’s not forget that we can also use wind energy on other planets. Since there are storms on Mars, some kind of wind turbines are definitely a possibility. There are many other ways to create energy as well, but as said before, we’ll get into the details later.

So every time from now on when you tend to your garden or farm, or check out your aquaponics system, think about the possibilities of having all of this working on other planets or moons. Who knows, one of you might find a breakthrough.

Ok, this is it for the overview. I hope you enjoyed the article and come back for more.