History
Contenido
El científico ruso Konstantín Tsiolkovski fue una de las primeras personas en discutir el uso de la vida fotosintética como recurso en los sistemas agrícolas espaciales. La especulación sobre el cultivo de plantas en el espacio ha existido desde principios del siglo .[12] El término "astrobotánica" fue utilizado por primera vez en 1945 por el antes mencionado astrónomo ruso y pionero de la astrobiología Gavriil Adrianovich Tikhov.[13] La investigación en el campo se ha llevado a cabo tanto con plantas terrestres en crecimiento en entornos espaciales como con la búsqueda de vida vegetal en otros planetas.
Seeds
The first organisms in space were "specially developed seed strains" launched 134 km on July 9, 1946 on a V2 rocket launched by the United States, although these samples were not recovered. The first seeds successfully recovered were corn, released on July 30, 1946, which were soon followed by others of rye and cotton. These early suborbital biological experiments were managed by Harvard University and the Naval Research Laboratory and aimed at exposing living tissue to radiation.[14] In 1971, 500 tree seeds (primarily loblolly pine, Virginia plantain, sweetgum, California redwood, and Douglas fir) orbited the Moon on Apollo 14. These lunar trees were planted and grown alongside controls on the Moon. Earth, where no changes were detected.
Floors
In 1982, the crew of the Soviet space station Salyut 7 conducted an experiment, prepared by Lithuanian scientists (Alfonsas Merkys and others), and grew some Thale cress using a Fiton-3 micro greenhouse experimental apparatus, thus becoming the first plants to flower and produce seeds in space.[15][16] A Skylab experiment studied the effects of gravity and light on rice plants.[17] The Greenhouse SVET-2 successfully achieved seed growth in 1997 aboard the Mir space station.[18] Bion 5 and Bion 7 transported carrots and corn respectively. Plant research continued on the International Space Station. The biomass production system was used by Expedition 4 on the ISS. The Vegetable Production System (Veggie) system was later used aboard Veggie. Plants tested on Veggie before going into space included lettuce, chard, radishes, bok choy, and peas. Romaine lettuce was grown in space on Expedition 40, which was harvested when ripe, frozen, and sent back to Earth. Members of Expedition 44 became the first American astronauts to eat plants grown in space on August 10, 2015, when they harvested red leaf lettuce. by NASA Donald Pettit.[23] In January 2016, American astronauts announced that a zinnia had bloomed aboard the ISS.[24] In 2018, the Veggie-3 experiment was tested with mats. One of the objectives is to grow food for the crew's consumption. Crops tested at this time include cabbage, lettuce and mizuna.[25].
Plants for life support in space
Algae were the first candidate for human-plant life support systems. Initial research in the 1950s and 1960s used species of Chlorella, Anacystis, Synechocystis, Scenedesmus, Synechococcus and Spirulina "Spirulina (genus)") to study how photosynthetic organisms could be used for O2 and CO2 cycling in closed systems.[26] Later research through Russia's BIOS program and the United States CELSS program investigated the use of higher plants to fulfill the roles of atmospheric regulators, waste and food recyclers for sustained missions. The most commonly studied crops include starch crops such as wheat, potatoes, and rice; protein-rich crops such as soybeans, peanuts and common beans; and a host of other nutrition-enhancing crops, such as lettuce, strawberry, and kale. Testing optimal growing conditions in closed systems has required research into both the environmental parameters needed for particular crops (such as different light periods for short-day versus long-day crops) and the crops that are best suited for life-support system growth.
Experiment results
Several experiments have focused on how plant growth and distribution compares under microgravity, space, and Earth conditions. This allows scientists to explore whether certain plant growth patterns are innate or driven by the environment. For example, Allan H. Brown tested the movements of seedlings aboard the space shuttle Columbia in 1983. The movements of sunflower seedlings were recorded while they were in orbit. They observed that seedlings still experienced rotational growth and circulation despite the lack of gravity, demonstrating that these behaviors are hardwired.[37]
Other experiments have found that plants have the ability to exhibit gravitropism, even under low gravity conditions. For example, the ESA European Modular Cultivation System[38] allows experimentation with plant growth; Acting as a miniature greenhouse, scientists aboard the International Space Station can investigate how plants react under conditions of varying gravity. The Gravi-1 experiment (2008) used the EMCS to study lentil seedling growth and amyloplast movement in calcium-dependent pathways. The results of this experiment found that plants could detect the direction of gravity even at very low levels. A later EMCS experiment placed 768 lentil seedlings in a centrifuge to stimulate various gravitational changes; This experiment, Gravi-2 (2014), showed that plants shift calcium signaling toward root growth while growing at various levels of gravity. Many experiments take a more targeted approach to looking at overall plant growth patterns rather than specific growth behavior. One such experiment from the Canadian Space Agency, for example, found that white spruce seedlings grew differently in the antigravity space environment compared to seedlings on Earth;[42] the space seedlings exhibited greater shoot and needle growth, and also had a random distribution of amyloplast compared to the control group on Earth.[43].