by Sydney Vernon
Open Window School, Bellevue, WA
Third Place
“It was one small bite for man, one giant leap for #NASAVEGGIE.”
Scott Kelly, the author of this excited tweet from space, was one of the first people to ever taste fresh vegetables grown away from Earth on the International Space Station. The red romaine lettuce, a major change after over fifty years of astronauts’ diets consisting mainly of non-fresh food, was harvested from a new “giant leap” in engineering: the Veggie. Using moisture-wicking “plant pillows” filled with soil replacement, the Veg-01 experiment, or Veggie system, can grow plants in a microgravity environment with limited water. The Veggie, I believe, definitely qualifies as a promising new technology, an invention with safety, health, well-being, and sustainability at its roots.
When John Glenn ate the first food in space, applesauce, in 1962, the story of space-food blasted off. Later, in Project Gemini, NASA started using freeze-dried space-food. This kind of packaging was a significant improvement upon pureed beef-in-a-tube. It kept the original natural oils of the food item inside, but when the package was sealed with a vacuum, longer term room temperature storage was introduced as an option. Once they were ready to eat the meal, astronauts would simply rehydrate the freeze-dried food. During the Apollo Program, space-food engineers made even more improvements to astronaut eating. For example, the capability to use hot water for rehydration, color-coded, pre-assembled meals, labeled with day/meal information, and even drinking systems embedded in space suits. For the following Skylab Program, aluminum cans were the main means of packing food due to the amount of water required to revive dehydrated food and the interest in water conservation on the ISS. In short, the past fifty-four years of space-food have been an evolution of packages and methods for Earth food to be shipped to space. What’s great about the Veggie is that it completely revolutionized space-food by growing the food onboard: just 33 days from seed to fresh food.
There are many safety and health benefits to the Veggie. The most obvious reason is simply the fact that it grows “veggies,” which along with fresh fruit are essential for a healthy diet. According to an article from the Harvard School of Public Health, eating fresh produce can “lower blood pressure, reduce risk of heart disease and stroke, prevent some types of cancer, lower risk of eye and digestive problems, and have a positive effect upon blood sugar.” Seeing as space-station astronauts unfortunately have not installed a “supermarket” capsule yet, maintaining a healthy diet with fruits and vegetables is a little tricky in space. It’s difficult to transport fresh fruit and vegetables, so hardworking engineers have now developed a method of growing greens using the Veggie, which will help NASA astronauts (and cosmonauts!) be safe and healthy in the long term. "We think that having that additional component of fresh food grown on the station, would make the crew generally happier, and hopefully healthier," says inspiring Veggie project scientist Gioia Massa. At first, the Veggie team was unsure if the system presented any safety issues or had made the romaine lettuce somehow hazardous, so samples were sent back to Earth for a successful safety test before a second batch was grown for the astronauts. Overall, the new addition of fresh produce will do wonders for astronaut health.
Reducing risk of heart disease is a plus for the Veggie, but nutrition and food supply is just the beginning. The Veggie has bountiful benefits for astronauts’ emotional and psychological well-being. Just the sight of something alive, green, and growing is enough to lift the spirits of relatively isolated astronauts. As Gioia Massa says, “It's something to look at. It is something that changes with the passage of time.”
Clearly, the Veggie technology has been proven to be “one giant leap” for the ISS, its astronauts, NASA, and space travel in general. In fact, it’s highly likely that enhanced versions of the system will be used for sustainable and low-water farming for a future Mars colony. But one of my favorite aspects of the Veggie is its potential use on the planet where it originated; there are many advantages to using Veggie-style systems for Earth farming in drier areas. Take any drought-experiencing nation: can you imagine the impact of this low-water plant technology in areas that have been deprived of water or lack fertile soil? The plant pillows and their soil substitute (a kind of clay similar to that used on baseball diamonds) could be the answer to easier and more productive farming in dry climates. The technology could be adapted for Earth usage.
Due to its size, the Veggie couldn’t sustain a small NASA crew for long, much less our growing population. The collapsible unit could be made much larger (there is less of a space constraint on our planet than there is on the ISS). LEDs could be replaced with a simple screen to let in sunlight, or a solar panel with equipment to keep the plants at a regulated temperature in environments too hot for ideal growth. For fruits from trees, more permanent and significantly taller Veggies could be developed. More advanced watering systems could even incorporate what little rainwater falls on the areas, or there could be a component that could use simple desalination techniques in non-fertile locations near saltwater. So while NASA astronauts on Mars are using Veggie systems for their food supply, the produce we eat every day on Earth might someday be grown in desert areas using the same innovative engineering. There are countless places in our world where the Veggie could lend a helping hand (or leaf).
In conclusion, the new Veggie system for growing plants in microgravity will make tremendous improvements to the health and well-being of astronauts on the International Space Station, on Mars, and beyond, as well as having the potential to be part of a sustainable farming system on Earth. The presence of the Veggie’s lush green homegrown produce has benefits for astronauts’ psychological well-being, and adding fresh fruits and vegetables to astronauts’ diets—aside from being revolutionary in the history of space-food—impacts many aspects of their health, including possibly preventing some forms of cancer. And it’s not unlikely that versions of the Veggie will be primary sources of food in future Mars colonies. That’s definitely an innovative, inventive, and most of all deliciously engineered future.
References:
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. (n.d.). Vegetables and Fruits. Retrieved January 6, 2016, from http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/vegetables-and-fruits/
Pearlman, R. (2015, August 10). Astronauts Snack on Space-Grown Lettuce for First Time. Retrieved January 6, 2016, from http://www.space.com/30209-astronauts-eat-space-lettuce.html
Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. (n.d.). Food in Space. Retrieved January 15, 2016, from https://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/apollo-to-the-moon/online/astronaut-life/food-in-space.cfm