Soybean Crop Sprouting Up On The ISS

Has astroculture has taken a 'small sprout for plant, a giant leap for plant-kind' on the International Space Station (ISS)? The Advanced AstrocultureTM (ADVASC) plant growth chamber is now "harvested" its second generation of soybeans. This is the first time that soybeans have been grown from seed to seed in space, and it is an important proof-of-concept advance for astroculture.

The goal of produce ADVASC is ultimately the production of high energy, low mass food sources during long duration space missions. The principle investigator was Dr. Weijia Zhou, of the University of Wisconsin - Madison (disclosure: the author's alma mater), with the payload developed by the Wisconsin Center for Space Automation and Robotics. The ADVASC was "designed to operate relatively autonomously, providing temperature, humidity, lighting control, nutrient delivery, and data downlink with minimal crew assistance."

The ADVASC provides only 486 square centimeters of growing area. Yet relatively large amounts of crops can be grown in small areas. In Africa, a single, low-technology, 2 meter diameter "keyhole gardens" can supply the entire vegetable needs of a small family of three or four people. With cutting-edge space technology, an even smaller garden should be able to satisfy the vegetable needs of the crew of ISS or a station on the Moon, Mars or an asteroid mining colony.

(Image, upper right: NASA ISS Science Officer, Peggy Whitson looks at the ADVASC Soybean plant growth experiment in the U.S. Laboratory during Increment 5. Image courtesy of NASA).