Maximum Yield Cannabis Canada 2017 November/December | Page 28

featur
growing food in space
As humans look to colonize distant planets
in our solar system and beyond, work has
started to figure out a way to feed those
willing to make the trip both during
their travels and once settled. Lee
Allen takes us closer to one
program experimenting with
controlled-environment
growing for space travel.
28
feature
Story and Photos
by Lee Allen
A
ccording to Universe Today, depending
on orbital rotation, the average distance
between Earth and Mars is over 225 million
kilometres. Even traveling at over 56,000
kilometres per hour, such a trip could take
up to eight months. Hence the need for
the Mars-Lunar Greenhouse project at
the University of Arizona’s Controlled
Environment Agriculture Center (CEAC)
in Tucson, a fully functional prototype
greenhouse that has been
growing crops for years
under the auspices of a
NASA Steckler Space
Grant collaboration.