How to choose space crops

21.08.2023 - 12:01 / theunconventionalgardener.com / Emma Doughty

Astronaut Steven Swanson tending to the Veggie garden on the International Space Station. Image credit: NASA

The aim of my GlutBusters project is essentially to change the way we choose the crops we grow in our kitchen gardens, moving the focus away from the ‘maximum yield’ mentality that can bring problematic gluts and ‘hungry gaps’ and towards planning for diversity rather than sheer quantity. It’s an idea that relies on a modern reality – access to crops grown on farms and commercial suppliers means that gardeners with a lack of time and/or space don’t need to aim for self-sufficiency.

But what about gardeners in space? How would they choose which crops to grow? Currently astronauts are supplied from Earth, and it’s not something they need to worry about. But it costs getting on for £14,000 to launch every kilo into space (it depends a little bit on which launch system is used), so giving astronauts the means to grow some of their own food could prove cost-effective. That’s particularly true for long duration missions, such as a crewed mission to Mars, or a lunar base. The more self-sufficient we can make the crew, the less they will need to be resupplied from Earth. However – it’s not only food they need. Plants could form a part of their life support system, removing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen, as well as recycling waste products and cleaning up waste water.

In the early 1960s, NASA began to look into the science and technology of Controlled Ecological Support Systems (CELSS), which could do all of those things. It was Boeing Company that produced the first list of suggested plants, which included 14 different crops: lettuce, Chinese cabbage, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, turnip, Swiss chard, endive, dandelion,