Since 1986, the Environmental Systems for NASA Center for Food and Human Exploration of Space (CFESH) has been working in close partnership with NASA scientists, engineers and administrators to address targeted goals related to advanced human support technology and advanced life support programs for long duration space missions. Research emphasizes advanced life support system development to support NASA’s vision for a sustained human presence in space in the next century. The unique contribution of the Center has been the development and refinement of information, technology and systems for growth, processing, utilization and recycling (waste) of sweet potatoes and peanuts that meet the needs of NASA. During this period, January 1997 through December 2001, the Center was organized under four interdisciplinary research teams of life sciences and engineering faculty and students charged with developing the horticultural protocols and systems and control technologies needed for advanced life support.
Dr. Desmond Mortley, Project Coordinator
Environmental Systems for NASA Center
for Food & Human Exploration of Space
Phone: 334-727-8404
Email: mortleyd@tuskegee.edu
RESEARCH
The Tuskegee University research focuses on two areas of NASA's Strategic Plan defined as the Human Exploration and Development of Space Enterprise (HEDS) and the Space Technology Enterprise (STE) . The unique contribution of CFESH will be the development and refinement of information, technology and systems for growth, processing, utilization and recycling (waste) of sweetpotatoes and peanuts that meet the design plans of HEDS and STE. The two crops can be processed into a variety of foods using both foliage and roots and nuts as part of an integrated food and environmental system for human life support in space.
TEAMS
The work of CFESH is organized under four interdisciplinary research teams of life sciences and engineering faculty and students charged with developing the horticultural protocols and systems and control technologies needed for ALS. Integral to the goals of NASA is the training of minority and other students some of whom, it is hoped, will pursue the Ph.D. and later choose scientific, engineering or technical careers with NASA and the space program.
The Germplasm Development and Improvement team has the responsibility to evaluate sweetpotato and peanut cultivars with superior performance in controlled environments and having desirable traits for an advanced life support system-compactness of growth will be important, but also high yield and dry matter content, early maturity, and good nutritive qualities and taste. Both conventional breeding and molecular genetics techniques are being used to achieve these goals.
The Crop Production and Environmental Systems team focuses on gathering baseline data on growth and yield under varying controlled conditions of sweetpotato and peanut. In the near future, this team will experiment with solid substrates such as lunar simulants and zeolites, which are being used at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, the lead NASA center for CFESH. Translation of the data into models to be used for predictive purposes is another task of this team.
Waste Management and Recycling An integrated, partially closed loop for biological waste resource recycling/crop production along with the protocols for attaining such is the goal of the Waste Management and Recycling team.
The Food Technology and Utilization team must determine and evaluate the nutritive value of high performance cultivars of the two crops as well as deal with issues of food processing, safety and storage, and menu development in collaboration with centers working on other crops so that nutritionally-balanced and palatable meals can be available to future space explorers.
BIO-PLEX
The Tuskegee University Center for Food and Environmental Systems for Human Exploration of Space worked closely with the developers of the Bio-Plex (Bioregenerative Planetary Life Support Systems Test Complex) facility at Johnson Space Center (JSC). On September 22, 1999, Tuskegee's research procedure for sweetpotato production was used in a successful 17-week test at JSC, resulting in 125 pounds of sweetpotatoes (TU-155, a cultivar bred at Tuskegee University).
This type of testing will provide data and technology necessary for growing food for future missions on the moon and/or on Mars.
