Blog Posts

Thinking about life in space...

When thinking about life in space, and the technology required to sustain that life, it is really easy to dismiss space technologies as outlandish and in the realm of sci-fi. In fact, I often see people online saying that people shouldn’t be wasting their time and money by working towards life in space, and instead work towards ensuring the future of Earth remains habitable. I actually see a lot of the necessities for life in space as equally important for ensuring a future on Earth.

What would we need to live on Mars? Some of the first things that come to mind for me are water, food, energy, and materials. All of this would be needed in addition to building up completely new, and novel, infrastructure systems that will allow for life on a non-habitable planet (less gravity, no oxygen, extreme radiation, etc). Additionally, the systems created on a different planet will be as circular as possible, ensuring minimal waste of materials and a continuous supply of resources. While Earth seemingly has an abundance of water, food, energy, and materials the reality is that the way we go about preserving or acquiring these resources can be unsustainable and detrimental for the future of our planet. Through this blog post I want to highlight some of the technologies being developed as space-tech solutions that can double as climate-tech (and vice versa).

The future of food on Earth and in space

As you can imagine, establishing farms full of traditional livestock would be hard to do in space. We don’t really need to get into the logistics of even getting animals to space. Even if we did bring them to space, growing animals is land and resource intensive. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, about 25% of land on Earth is used for livestock farming. Additionally, large amounts of water and food are required to sustain the life of the animal until they are ready to be eaten: according to Foodtank, about 1,800 gallons of water and seven pounds of animal feed is needed to produce one pound of beef. Right now, there are a lot of companies working on more efficient ways of producing protein compared to traditional livestock forming. Eventually these technologies can be used in space but will also beneficial here on Earth. Some of these companies include:

Air Protein

Air Protein uses carbon dioxide to produce protein! The atmosphere of Mars is 98% carbon dioxide, meaning that there is an abundance of this resource to be used on this planet. This means that those traveling to Mars wouldn’t have to bring this resource up to space. In theory, if people wanted to use the technology being developed by Air Protein, they would be able to use CO2 harvested from the Martian environment, and incorporate it into their processing facilities to grow their microorganism, which is their protein product. With the increase in carbon in our atmosphere on Earth, this technology can be very useful in combating climate change by removing carbon from the atmosphere (while adding to our food resources at the same time). Additionally, the company aims for their system to be completely solar powered, ideal again for space and sustainability on Earth. Air Protein is a Series A company founded in 2019 by Lisa Dyson and John Reed.

Aleph Farms

Aleph Farms is creating what some may consider a more traditional protein, beef. However, their method for producing beef is anything but traditional. Rather than raising a cow, Aleph farms instead uses a biopsy from a cow to grow beef cells using tissue culture methods. They then use 3D printing to create the final form of their beef. Aleph Farms is an Israel based company that was founded in 2017 by Didier Toubia and Shulamit Levenberg. As part of their Aleph Zero space program, they are already designing the technology needed to produce meat in space. In 2019, Aleph Farms grew a small amount of meat on the International Space Station (ISS) using machinery made by their partners 3D Bioprinting Solutions. Recently, they returned to space in 2022 on the Rakia Mission, where they will continue to optimize on their technology for growing meat in space. Similar to the approach of Air Protein, this technology will limit the number of resources needed to be packed, as a single line of cells can be continuously maintained through tissue culture. Utilizing this technology on Earth will also have huge impacts on the environment. The use of this technology will limit the amount of land and resources used to raise animal livestock as well as limit the carbon emissions from these animals.

In addition to Aleph Farms, there are plenty of other companies on Earth using similar approaches for a wide range of animals meats. The list is quite long at this point, so I won’t take the time to list them all. However, you can find a pretty comprehensive list of these companies on the Alternative Protein Company Database curated by the Good Food Institute. If you are interested in only tissue engineered products, filter the protein category by 'Cultivated'.

Outside of protein, coming up with ways to grow plants and other traditional agriculture in space will be important. NASA has been working on growing plants in space using their Vegetable Production System, also known as Veggie, and the Advanced Plant Habitat. So far, these technologies have supported the growth of produce such as lettuce, cabbage, kale, and peppers! Companies capable of creating genetically modified versions of plants that survive with less water (drought conditions) and be more efficient in photosynthesis could be impactful in space as well as on Earth. Given the changing climate, and drought conditions in some areas of the world, identifying or creating versions of plants that are resilient in drought conditions will help with water conservation efforts and ensuring that plants survive despite growing in less than ideal conditions. Additionally, the incorporation of genes that can increase the capacity to convert CO2 into oxygen and sugar through photosynthesis this could act as a carbon sink on Earth and potentially reduce the amount of effort needed to generate oxygen in space, if this oxygen can be harvested. Additionally, better photosynthesis can increase crop growth rates by quickening this energy making step, limiting resources needed to tend to the plants. The company Living Carbon founded in 2019 by Maddie Hall and Patrick Mellor might be using methods such as this to design trees that absorb more CO2 and grow faster, effectively combating climate change on Earth.

Finally, through cellular agriculture we can produce other ingredients that would be unrealistic to make naturally in space such as cheese and oils. Both of these are already being produced using cell culturing and fermentation methods. Zero Acre Farms recently launched their first cooking oil product. Additionally, Perfect Day as well as several other companies have created dairy products such as ice cream, cream cheese, and milk using fermentation. With the food technology being developed on Earth, those in space could potentially have a bunch of bioreactors generating fresh food!

Outside of food, what else would we need in space?

Venturing outside of food, some other basic necessities in space include an energy source, fuel, and materials. Energy is a relatively simple solve. We are already well equipped with solar power and geothermal power technologies that could potentially be deployed in space. The use of these technologies on Earth is also important so that we can limit the amount of fossil fuels that contribute to CO2 emissions and are also difficult to obtain. As for fuel, the company twelve, founded in 2015 by Etosha Cave, Kendra Kuhl, and Nicholas Flanders, plans to make chemicals, materials, and fuels and already has several partnerships.

Finally, there are a lot of startups in the climate-tech space that use CO2 from the atmosphere to create materials. This includes companies such as Covestro, which has developed a way to harness CO2 to make plastic based products by converting CO2 to polymer called cardyon. Additionally, Air Company, founded in 2017 by Gregory Constantine and Staff Sheehan, uses captured CO2 to produce perfume, sugar, vodka, and hand sanitizer. All of these companies, in addition to the company Air Protein mentioned above, use a resource that is abundant on another planet such as Mars, as one of their primary raw materials. Focusing on CO2 as a raw material on Earth will be important in decreasing the CO2 that is contributing to the atmosphere, worsening climate change. All of that is dependent on a good way to capture CO2 for usage in these technologies.

So, to those that think moving to another planet is the next step to avoid the problems here on Earth, keep in mind that theres a lot of tech that will need to be created to make that life possible, and it is very likely that the tech created for space will have very useful implementations here on Earth as well :)

Per Aspera Ad Astra!

‍