‘Agriculture in Space’ and ‘Drones on Mars’

‘Space exploration’ has its own charm. Perhaps it’s an area where class and creed does not matter and ‘Humanity’ gets counted as a single entity. Or maybe it is a big money game, not for the poor of Third world who are still struggling for sustenance.

Anyway, it has ample scope of imagination…  From science fiction to real science, there are many ideas which resonate and get realized… because of actual or perceived need.     

Two of these had an insignificant presence in the back page of an Indian newspaper recently. Amid the more appealing headlines of ‘Radhe Ma’ and ‘Indo-Pak tension’, they were nowhere in the mainstream electronic media. Yet, they may have profound impact on our future generations.

Incidentally both are being pursued by NASA.

For a poor nation like ours, such costly ventures maybe beyond our means, especially when we are still unable to address farmers’ suicide and malnutrition. But I feel jealous to know that someone on the same planet has the means to venture into such unknown territories.

The first one is about food:

Astronauts in ‘International Space Station’ ate the vegetables sown in space.

[Link: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/aug/10/nasa-astronauts-lettuce-vegetables-grown-space ]

Someone remarked – ‘It was one small bite for man, one giant meal for mankind.’ Whether it turns out to be a giant leap or not - is yet to be seen.

The harvest was sown in space earlier also, but at that time it was brought back to earth to test it for food safety regulation. I wonder if we can have such process for all our food items sold in Indian retail market and streets. How many of them would be able to pass the rigorous food regulatory test of NASA. Maggi fiasco is just the tip of iceberg and most of us are aware of how contaminating our food is!

Well… ‘Space-produce’ passed the test and this time astronauts devoured it. Now what is so important in it?

The main objective is to get the fresh food [not the preserved one] for human on Mars mission. But who knows we may need such ‘Space-produce’ in our everyday life.

Because this earth is eventually going to be so polluted that crop sown here would definitely be contaminated. Pesticides in the soil are only one side of this problem. Environmentalist and soil experts can elaborate but yes, it’s a very real threat and agriculture in space can be a solution.

With the private commercial ventures vying for the futuristic space pie, maybe a startup would soon offer such special space-grown vegetables on your doorstep through drone couriers.

Second insignificant news story is about the ‘Drones’ to be sent to Mars.

NASA Designers have made a prototype of small drones which would dig the steep valleys of Martian surface, where the Rover can’t go.  

 [Link: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/drone360/2015/08/03/nasa-wants-to-put-drones-to-work-on-mars/ ]

Drones will be sent as detachable payloads on a rover that will act as base station for them.

Perhaps we may then find the aliens hiding inside a cave or an underground world connected through an opening on a ridge where the drone would hover.

Before a human foot finds that distant world, we should know about every inch of that planet – Yes, that is the obvious idea behind this design.

Perhaps such little drones would be required for each space flight beyond our friendly universe that is mostly up to ‘International Space Station’.  In the asteroids, where we are looking for minerals, in many moons like Titan where we suspect of an alien life, or maybe for a mission to Kepler 186f in distant future, and so on – there are ample possibilities where this nascent idea would become a matter of life and death.   

I don’t know if this earth is going to survive for another thousand years or not. But for the human race, ‘Space’ is going to be a refuge for sure. Little drones – not just for surveillance or as couriers – but to smell the unknown territory before landing up there – will definitely be the force multiplier.

And of course, without Space-Agriculture there would be no survival.

Maybe then we would have a tale of a lady farmer on a space-station and a gentleman miner on an asteroid...