Space Farming

In my first article, I mentioned the importance of space exploration in our pursuit for potential and promising world. Even in the unlikely case that we do manage to stumble across one, the prospect of that planet being identical to our own is exceedingly low. Consider Mars, for example. For years, we've been talking about the possibility of humans settling upon this red planet, and some of us have even proposed manned missions to visit our nearest planetary neighbour. But it's not that simple, is it? Mars' atmosphere consists of 0.13% oxygen, 2.7% nitrogen and 95% carbon dioxide, making it overly laborious for its colonization. Space Farming is a plausible solution for this mishap, and may be defined as the cultivation and growth of plants or crops on off-Earth celestial objects, or inside spacecraft present in outer space.

                   Earth’s early atmosphere contained only small amounts of free oxygen, and the oxygen-rich atmosphere that evolved later was believed to be created by Cyanobacteria. Nearly 2.3 billion years ago, these microbes, which lived in the seas, were the first organisms to produce oxygen, leading to a transformation of the Earth's environment. If we could grow similar bacteria, or even cultivate certain crops on other planets out there, so that their atmospheric compositions would eventually be identical to that of our own, then we could obviate most of the impending difficulties that we would've faced if it weren't for Space Farming. These terraformed planets would now be even more capable to advocate life, and within no time, we would have found ourselves a new world to settle upon.

         Space Farming can even be done on the Moon. One of the main causes for its exanimate environment is its atmosphere-free surface, and one of the primary reasons as to why the Moon doesn't have an atmosphere is because its gravity is, by a fair amount, insubstantial. When gases floating in outer space are attracted by its gravity, they start accelerating toward the Moon. But once they reach the Moon's surface, their instantaneous velocities are far greater than the Moon's escape velocity, so instead of remaining on its surface, they just bounce back into space. If, somehow, we could create an enclosure on the Moon for Space Farming, then it would, slowly and steadily, have an atmosphere, either due to photosynthesis or by microbial metabolism. But doing this would take thousands of years, and trillions of dollars’ worth of investment, which doesn’t sound quite propitious. 

                   Space Farming can also be done on several spacecraft in outer space, and research regarding space farming on the ISS has already begun. It isn’t all about creating a pleasant atmosphere within manned spacecrafts, but Space Farming could also be, and is already being employed to grow appropriate food for astronauts to consume. Recently, three astronauts, an American, a Russian and a Japanese, docked at the International Space Station for the first noshing of space produce. The Expedition 44 crew members would be the first to harvest and eat crops, like lettuce, grown aboard the ISS, which is another necessary advance for astronauts on deep-space missions. Several attempts to grow crops in space were tried out, including one in 2002, and many other unsuccessful experiments by astronauts to grow edible food in their own time. We still face a plethora of technical issues when it comes to Space Farming in microgravity environments, like that on a spaceship's, but the day when life-support on spaceships is aided mostly by Space Farming is not too far.

Shreyash Dahale