Modeling of Space Crop-Based Dishes for Optimal Nutrient Delivery to Astronauts and Beyond on Earth

Abstract

Future long-term human exploration of space will need a supply of resources for astronauts, including fresh food from space farms. This means it is necessary to identify combinations of crops that can be successfully grown together and which provide a balanced and palatable diet for astronauts. We used numerical optimization to identify such combinations, using macro-and micronutritional content as constraints, while optimizing water load needed for crop farming. The food constraints considered were based on the recommendations of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), considering up to 36 nutrients and 102 crops. We evaluated 10 scenarios ("space dishes") for daily full-nutrient supply to one astronaut, with four scenarios being vegetarian (crops only) and six being omnivorous (crops and meat). Each scenario was analyzed for the capability of plant growth, including the required planting area and crop growth time and productivity; from the viewpoint of optimizing performance in space. As plants contain both edible and inedible parts and require fertilizer input, respective circularity assessments were made determining the waste generation, degree of recyclability, and overall mass processed, using three common metrics of the circular economy. The space dish identified as optimal was prepared as a salad, to allow judgment on the palatability, i.e., the "space food acceptance," by a small psychology test. These assessments are essential steps toward feasibility in long-term human space missions, for example, to Mars.

Digital Twins in Agriculture: Orchestration and Applications

“…The rise of the world population has increased global demands on food production, not only for subsistence but also to support well-being and the shift to a more sustainable lifestyle. This is further compounded by the need to reduce consumption of natural resources and increase agricultural productivity . Precision agriculture (PA) has emerged subsequently as a more productive alternative, employing advanced agricultural solutions to provide, e.g., exactly the right amount of nutrients at the right moment for the plants.…”