The green new world of cosmic cropsPlants can provide clean air, water and food to support living in outer space Your entire home --your entire life-- lies just below the dark, dry craters of the moon. You're surrounded by brilliant light, illuminating your family's faces and bringing life to a lush bounty of corn plants, tomato vines and dwarf orange trees. The plants help make the air pure and calm, as you look out your window into the sky and watch the Earth as the moon orbits around her.
The Space and Advanced Life-Support Agriculture (SALSA) research group, led by Prof. Mike Dixon, Plant Agriculture, is calling on the likes of lettuce, kale and tomatoes for their abilities as natural recycling agents. Dixon says plants growing in recycling hydroponic (water-based) nutrients can both provide food and establish good air quality in outer space. And he wants to help that happen. Typically, Canadian space research involves robotics, such as the famous Canadarm, or communications and Earth observation satellites. But no Canadian institution other than the University of Guelph is involved in life-support research for space. This spring, the Canada Foundation for Innovation awarded the SALSA researchers $2.4 million expand the infrastructure capable of studying the potential use of biological systems, both in space and on Earth. There will be potential benefits for four primary industrial sectors:
"We could establish space colonies today," says Dixon. "We have the technology and know a great deal about creating self-sustaining systems. Now, we have to do the fine- tuning." The researchers are using the natural process of photosynthesis (the release of molecular oxygen and the removal of carbon dioxide from the air) to encourage a self-regulating life-support system. But plants don't just provide oxygen and remove carbon dioxide -- they can also be a source of water, which is pulled up through the plant from its roots and released through microscopic openings (called stomates) on its leaves. The water passing through the leaves is fresh and potable and can be collected by condensation.
Technical challengeThe technical challenge comes in learning how to effectively adapt this natural process in a limited, confined space, such as space pioneers would encounter beneath the moon. Dixon has assembled a team to meet the challenge. It consists of faculty colleague Prof. Bernard Grodzinski (SALSA co-director); graduate students Mike Stasiak, Geoff Cloutier, Glenn Roberts, Tom Graham, Dave Llewellyn, Jeff Mallany, Mark Garnett, Melanie Johnstone and Jason Deveau; research associates Diane Edwards, Alan Darlington, Vladimir Vailenko and Richard Côté (technical director); and technicians Jamie Lawson, Rodger Tschantz, Nan McKay and Jake Regala.Their first step towards adapting the process is utilizing plants' inner-canopy lower leaf potential. In this process, the inner canopy of plants such as soybeans or corn are subjected to cooler and more specialized light than traditional overhead lighting systems to promote growth (see related story on page 34). The SALSA laboratory's skills are particularly pertinent to one of the basic realities of living on other planets -- the need to live beneath them, rather than on their surfaces. Hollywood movies that depict space travellers merrily bouncing around on other planets' surfaces day in and day out in protective astronaut gear are a fantasy, says Dixon. "They could be on the surface for a while," he says, "but soon they would need protection from cosmic radiation and a life-support system that does not need to be resupplied. That's when they go underground." Additional studies on indoor air biofiltration are with the Northern Centre for Advanced Technology (NORCAT) at Cambrian College, a Sudbury group working with the SALSA researchers. The NORCAT team is developing life-support systems to guarantee good air quality underground, while the U.S. National Aeronautical Space Agency (NASA) is participating in mining-technique training, to build "homes" for those who'll be involved in programs on the moon or other planets. "This activity underlines that any long-term missions on other planets would require participants to spend extended time underground," says Dixon. "They'll need life support systems there, and that's where we come in." A major supporter of this research program is the Centre for Research in Earth and Space Technology (CRESTech), an Ontario Centre of Excellence. Dixon leads the controlled-environment systems theme at CRESTech, which includes the core research program in life-support as well as studies led by Profs. Chris Hall and Austin Fletcher, Environmental Biology, and Praveen Saxena, Plant Agriculture. These studies range from the assessment of toxic chemicals in recycling systems and phytoremediation techniques to the use of infrared light to enhance germination.
Terrestrial spinoffsAlthough the application to space life-support is a major objective of this research, it is also designed to improve air quality here on Earth, in confined places such as office buildings. Here, environmental toxins coming from sources such as wall paint, hairspray or even deodorant can cause problems. To conserve energy, office buildings are often tightly sealed, which promotes an even greater the accumulation of toxins.In response, Dixon is studying Genetron Systems' patented "breathing wall." It consists of select green plants particularly adept at filtering out airborne toxins and naturally improving air quality. This is the idea behind the Canada Life Environmental Room in the Canada Life Assurance Building in Toronto. A prototype research plant system, the meeting room has been part of an experiment testing the potential of using plants to improve indoor air quality since 1994. Dixon says the ecosystem has exerted an "unquestionably powerful influence" in cleaning the air by consuming airborne pollutants. In fact, this concept is so successful that Canada Life plans to incorporate it into its property development division as part of its marketing strategy. This SALSA group's research has extensive funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, Allied Signal Aerospace, Genetron Systems, Canada Life Assurance, Monsanto, Flowers Canada (ON), CRESTech, the Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Producers Marketing Board, the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Environment Canada and the European Space Agency. Cover story by Kelly Crowe |
The concept of humans sustaining life beneath the moon's surface isn't as unreal as it sounds. University of Guelph researchers are using plants to help humans find a way to live in space without suffering from cosmic radiation and insufficient life-support.
