NASA is conducting research toward developing modules that will recycle wastes produced by human and industrial processes, and provide essential ingredients for growing plants. The plants will provide food, oxygen, and water. This research is in response to the need for life-support resources that will not be naturally occurring in future bases on the Moon or Mars.
At Kennedy Space Center (KSC), NASA continues to develop a Controlled Ecological Life Support System (CELSS) in a government/commercial research partnership with The Land’s agricultural team at Walt Disney World’s EPCOT Center. The Land team is similarly testing new ways to sustain life in space. Sponsored by Kraft General Foods, The Land is an entertainment, research, and education facility at Walt Disney World in Lake Buena Vista, FL.
The cooperative effort incorporates plantgrowing racks and related KSC-supplied bioregenerative equipment installed in a greenhouse near the end of The Land’s boat ride, on which visitors travel through five greenhouses containing more than 30 crops from around the world. The plants are grown on A-frame structures that allow the roots to be sprayed from the inside with a hydroponic nutrient solution.
At KSC, the CELSS research focuses on growing plants in special trays in an atmospherically sealed, environmentally controlled chamber. Scientists monitor parameters such as gases produced in the process. At The Land’s facilities, initial research involved testing software and hardware subsystems controlling the plant growing racks, which were developed under the partnership between NASA and Walt Disney World. Additional research studies how microbial contaminants, such as fungi and bacteria, affect plant growth.
