Fresh vegetables for astronauts

Tomatoes, cucumbers and salad in space? Astronauts, who will fly to the moon or Mars, will not have to give up fresh vegetables. A special mobile greenhouse is currently being developed in Bremen - and will be used for the first time at the South Pole. There are perfect conditions.

"A little red and blue - the plant does not need more photosynthesis," explains Antarctic gardener Paul Zabel, who is to test the special greenhouse at the South Pole.

"In December, I go to Antarctica for twelve months to test a space greenhouse at the Neumayer III research station." The job description sounds unusual: Paul Zabel is an approaching Antarctic gardener. Soon he will move into the German research station Neumayer III to look after the contents of a special container - for a whole year. "One of the daily tasks is to take care of the greenhouse, to see that all the systems work, and then, of course, the harvesting of the plants, the care of the numerous scientific experiments."

EDEN-ISS, is the name of the EU project coordinated by the German Center for Air and Space in Bremen. The background is the vision of building a greenhouse on Mars or Mars to provide fresh greenery. "The Antarctic is similar to the Moon and Mars, it is isolated, and the station we go to is the Neumayer Station III." The team size is similar to that of the Antarctic Of a manned mission to the moon and Mars, so we go there. "

From Bremen to the Antarctic

Greenhouses are already some in Antarctica. However, EDEN-ISS is something special: "The greenhouse is a completely closed system, all circuits - air, water - are closed, which is new, that has not been the case with previous greenhouses."

Still, the container stands at the institute's premises in Bremen and is currently being tested. Inside the noise of the water pipes, on the walls several rows with well-developed greenery, which looks out of gray plastic containers. Schubert describes them as plant trays. "Down here, in the ground, the nutrients come in. They are delivered via tubes and pumped up into the plant trays, and I'll take this one, then you can look at it."

Schubert opens the side door of a container. One sees neither earth nor water, only bright scrub. "These are the roots, the cucumber roots, and now they see the mist coming in. This is the nutrient solution that is sprayed there."

Every 10 minutes a skimmed-up mist, plus some CO2 and lots of light - that is enough for the plants. Each box is illuminated by bright LEDs. They dive the container into a violet light. "This is a special development from Sweden, which gives the plant only the light spectrum it needs for its photosynthesis, which is mainly red and a bit blue.

Tomatoes, herbs, chinas salad - a diverse selection

The vegetable offer: quite rich. "These are tomatoes, cucumbers, over here, that's rocket, here we have Chinasalat, which is almost like horseradish, and we have the so-called infant station, where the babies are, before they are transplanted Spices-cupboard.There we have basil, parsley, chives-fresh spices you need. "

The container is supposed to deliver four to five kilograms of green stuff per week - enough to supply the ten-headed crew of the Neumayer station during the winter. At the end of 2018 the experiment should be completed. "We want to investigate how to build food in such a closed cycle system, how much time does it take to cultivate it, we hope that the food tastes, the crew accepts what we produce and that we generate enough . "

Cucumbers thrive splendidly in the greenhouse, the circuits of which are closed by air and water.

And Antarctic gardener Zabel? Is he already aware of the monthly darkness of the Antarctic winter? "Not yet, I'm so busy-I'm not coming to think about it."

At the very least, he already knows which container vegetables his special affection will be - and possibly a little homesickness. "I come from the Spreewald, a famous cucumber area in Germany, so it's the cucumbers."