[SRI] A prelimninary research agenda for food production in space



Da: space-renaissance-initiative  per conto di Adriano V. Autino, SRI, Founder <adriano.autino@gmail.com>
 
Just in case you missed the great lecture given a few days ago by Dr. Thomas Matula on "Production food in space", no matter: it is on the Space Renaissance YouTube channel for you to watch, re-watch, take notes and screenshots... https://youtu.be/nXR_TP1cEAk

Yes, all of the Space Renaissance Academy Webinar Series lectures are worth of being studied, yet i thought appropriate to spot on this lecture, rich of so many interesting and useful topics, and providing a 360° view of the space agricolture, farming and cuisine, clearly oriented not only toward the necessary research, but clearly built on space settlement requirements.
 
Dr. Matula started from the space agricolture concepts in the O'Neill vision for space settlement. The presentation goes ahead on Moon and Mars Farming.
The agricultural research and space cuisine on the ISS is commented in its good results and criticized for its limits -- mainly to be focused on ISS only.
The failure of the Biosphere 2 project is analyzed as well: Earth centric approach vs space centric, giant leaps vs. iterative approach, big science vs crowd science.
The benefits of space agricolture and farming research on Earth agricolture and farming (controlled environments) is also widely discussed, as well as robotic farming.

Yet, Dr. Matula, a Director of the SRI Board, and valued member of the Space Renaissance Academy Staff, focuses on a propositive research approach. He presented a prelimninary research agenda for food production in space, that will also bring meaningful evolution on Earth: greening the Earth while greening space.

An essential goal of the research: to understand the minimum level of complexity required by an artificial ecosystem to selfsustain.

Keep on following the lectures of the SR Academy Webinar Series, excellently conducted by Sabine Heinz!
The next date: May 2,  Jan Wörner (former ESA Director General) "Not going back, but going forward to the Moon".
Here's the Calendar, with past and future lectures.
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