Greenhouse Design for the Mars Environment: Development of a Prototype, Deployable Dome

Abstract

Concepts for landing missions on Mars often include greenhouse structures for plant production. The types of structures proposed vary from small automatically deployed structures for research purposes to larger structures that would be used for food production. Present plans are that greenhouses on Mars will be operated at internal pressures as low as 0.1 to 0.2 Earth atmospheres. Low internal pressures permit the use of structures with lower mass, but complicate the heat and mass transfer processes involved in maintaining a suitable environment for plant growth and raise questions about the requirements of plants for growth at low pressures. Results are given from preliminary tests of lettuce growth at 25 kPa.

Wheeler Raymond Agriculture for Space: People and Countries Paving the Way

“…As noted earlier, several groups in Europe and Japan conducted studies on the eff ects of atmospheric pressure on plants, as did several NASA researchers Corey et al, 1997Corey et al, , 2002Rygalov et al, 2004;He et al, 2007; [161,39,40,132,78,79]. Pressure is not a typical concern for terrestrial agriculture, yet it is critical for space settings.…”

“…The staggered planting approach revealed some challenges for growing diff erent aged crops hydroponically on the same nutrient solution, where older plants tended to remove K and P quickly, causing nutrient de iciencies in younger plants [12]. The next step in this test sequence was to build a larger facility that could ultimately supply most of the life support needs for human crews using crops NASA also supported eff orts to develop concepts for greenhouse structures that might be deployed or connected to human habitats on planetary surface setting (e.g., Wheeler and MartinBrennan, 2000;Bucklin et al, 2004;Rygalov et al, 2004;Kacira et al, 2012) [54, 199, 154, 30, 152, 87]. Such concepts could use electric lighting, or sunlight captured directly by structures, or by collectors and then delivered by iber optics to protected habitats (Cuello et al, 2000;Nakamura et al, 2009) [41, 134].…”

Agriculture for Space: People and Places Paving the Way

“…NASA also supported efforts to develop concepts for greenhouse structures that might be deployed or connected to human habitats on planetary surface setting (e.g., Fowler et al, 2000;Wheeler and Martin-Brennan, 2000;Sadler and Giacomelli, 2002;Bucklin et al, 2004; Unauthenticated Download Date | 5/10/18 10:31 PM…”

Design of a Deployable Structure for a Lunar Greenhouse Module

“…A scaled and adapted version of the design could be used as a greenhouse module for the Moon or Mars. The prototype dome has a diameter of 1 m and is made of clear Lexan (polycarbonate thermoplastic) with a stainless steel dome [35]. Fisher [36] compares the advantages and disadvantages of spheres (and domes) compared with toroidal shaped structures to determine the best candidate for a Mars habitat.…”