A key component to the puzzle of deep space exploration and colonization is food. Learning how to grow vegetation in space will help keep astronauts healthy, but there are some earth-bound applications to that research as well.
KRQE News 13's Chad Brummett met with one University of New Mexico (UNM) scientist who is working on a difficult feat. David Hanson, the assistant vice president for research at UNM, is figuring out how to grow agricultural products, like tomatoes, in the face of harsh environmental conditions.
Hanson is working with a group of scientists on a mission taking place 250 miles beyond planet Earth; it is called the Trichoderma Associated Space Tomato Inoculation Experiment, or TASTIE for short. Their goal is to determine if a prevalent genus of fungi, Trichoderma, could be the key to growing produce under arid conditions.
"When it's growing with tomatoes, they grow better. And we don't know for sure how they grow better. And what becomes really interesting is growing in space, and that extreme environment is still pretty stressful for plants," says Hanson.
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