Plant Farm

Today, astronauts on the International Space Station have an abundance of food delivered to them by cargo resupply vehicles, including some from commercial industries. On Mars, humans would not be able to rely on resupply missions from Earth – even with express delivery they would take at least nine months. For humans to survive on Mars, they will need a continuous source of food. They will need to grow crops.

Show only LeftShow only Right

Left: In a scene from "The Martian," astronaut Mark Watney employs some ingenious methods to plant crops on Mars. Right: Real-life NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren harvests lettuce grown from the Veggie experiment while on board the International Space Station.

Credits: Peter Mountain/NASA

Watney turns the Hab into a self-sustaining farm in “The Martian,” making potatoes the first Martian staple. Today, in low-Earth orbit, lettuce is the most abundant crop in space. Aboard the International Space Station, Veggie is a deployable fresh-food production system. Using red, blue, and green lights, Veggie helps plants grow in pillows, small bags with a wicking surface containing media and fertilizer, to be harvested by astronauts. In 2014, astronauts used the system to grow “Outredgeous” red romaine lettuce and just recently sampled this space-grown crop for the first time. This is a huge step in space farming, and NASA is looking to expand the amount and type of crops to help meet the nutritional needs of future astronauts on Mars.

Water Recovery

There are no lakes, river or oceans on the surface of Mars, and sending water from Earth would take more than nine months. Astronauts on Mars must be able to create their own water supply. The Ares 3 crew does not waste a drop on Mars with their water reclaimer, and Watney needs to use his ingenuity to come up with some peculiar ways to stay hydrated and ensure his survival on the Red Planet.

On the International Space Station, no drop of sweat, tears, or even urine goes to waste. The Environmental Control and Life Support System recovers and recycles water from everywhere: urine, hand washing, oral hygiene, and other sources. Through the Water Recovery System (WRS), water is reclaimed and filtered, ready for consumption. One astronaut simply put it, “Yesterday’s coffee turns into tomorrow’s coffee.”

Liquid presents some tricky problems in space. The WRS and related systems have to account for the fact that liquids behave very differently in a microgravity environment. The part of the WRS that processes urine must use a centrifuge for distillation, since gases and liquids do not separate like they do on Earth.

NASA is continuing to develop new technologies for water recovery. Research is being conducted to advance the disposable multifiltration beds (the filters that remove inorganic and non-volatile organic contaminants) to be a more permanent component to the system. Brine water recovery would reclaim every drop of the water from the “bottoms product” leftover from urine distillation. For future human-exploration missions, crews would be less dependent on any resupply of spare parts or extra water from Earth.

The technology behind this system has been brought down to Earth to provide clean drinking water to remote locations and places devastated with natural disasters.