What is a bio regenerative system? Why is it essential?
Nutritional requirements for long flights have been refined, placing more demands on food development. Despite the technological advances and increased variety, most space crews, with the exception of Sky labs Astronauts have not met the nutritional requirements. This problem must be solved. An integrated approach for various studies has been proposed during the meeting at Bad Honnef, Germany in September 1998. Biotechnology holds great promise for devising specific foods that would meet many of the stringent emission requirements. The use of plants in combination of Physicochemical technologies for supply of fresh food, water and oxygen has shown to be promising for human life support during planetary exploration.
The bio regenerative system for growing food in hydroponic plant growth chambers may be advantageous. However, this will require an additional training of growing and harvesting of crops and selection of various plant species and even use of genetically modified ones for high yields. A primary concein in use of plants is requirement of high light intensity for better yield. Various studies on plants growth under controlled environments have been carried out and some of the plants selected are wheat, lettuce, soybean, potato, sweet potato, tomato, radish, spinach and strawberry. Significant research and development is still required using ground based models and real flight before a bio regenerative food system can be chosen for the sojourn on the Moon or Mars.