Growing food in space can be a significant challenge in many ways. Astronauts cannot bring very large quantities of fresh food due to limited space on shuttles and perishability.

As such, on long missions, food has to be produced with minimal inputs, water, space and crew intervention.

Today, a number of technologies are being developed to grow food in space. NASA’s Veggie system has already grown red romaine lettuce, mizuna mustard greens and dwarf cherry tomatoes, among several others aboard the International Space Station.

Its Advanced Plant Habitat also provides a more sophisticated automated growth chamber, with more than 180 sensors.

However, the development of these technologies has led to a key question: can they be applied to agriculture under increasingly constrained conditions on Earth as well?

Why Growing Food In Space Is So Difficult

Growing food reliably in space is exceedingly difficult, mainly due to microgravity disrupting how water, air and roots interact.

As there is no gravity, water does not flow or drain naturally. Instead, it can form floating, unmanageable blobs or cling tightly to surfaces.

In some cases, water sticking to plant roots can effectively suffocate a plant, by preventing it from getting oxygen.

The lack of gravity can also disorient plant growth due to them using gravity to know which way is down. As such, microgravity can cause confused roots and shoots to grow in random directions.

Without natural convection, which causes hot air to rise and cool air to sink, stagnant air pockets can form around leaves too. This can lower evaporation while overheating the plant.

Higher radiation poses another hurdle. Spacecraft and planetary surfaces can expose plants to cosmic radiation and reduced magnetic fields, which can damage cell growth and alter how seeds develop.

Transporting Earth soil in large quantities is also too heavy and expensive, while extraterrestrial dirt, or regolith, lacks essential organic nutrients like nitrogen and can contain sharp, toxic compounds which further hinder growth.

How Space Farming Technologies Are Addressing These Constraints

A number of space agencies like NASA and European Space Agency, along with private companies are developing sophisticated soil-free, automated and bioregenerative systems in order to grow food during long-duration missions.

One of the most important technologies being developed is hydroponics. This is a method through which plants can be grown without soil by using a water-based mineral nutrient solution, used to deliver water and oxygen directly to roots in microgravity.

Systems like NASA’s Veggie and Advanced Plant Habitat use capillary action, special pillows, porous tubes and controlled airflow to do so.

This allows roots to receive precisely balanced food, water and oxygen in a clean, regulated setting. Closed-loop systems recycle water and remove the need for heavy soil as well.

Artificial LED lights and enclosed ventilation replace sunlight and open wind to drive photosynthesis.

Similarly, aeroponics is another method through which roots are suspended in the air and are periodically misted with a nutrient-rich water solution and have access to high levels of oxygen, which can boost growth.

In other cases, researchers are exploring fungi like Trichoderma and mycorrhizal to process and transform nutrient-poor lunar and Martian regolith into a substrate which can support crops.

Newer concepts, such as NASA’ Adaptive Nourishment Infrastructure, aimed towards deep space nutrition challenges, blends controlled-environment agriculture with fermentation , fungi cultivation and closed-loop nutrient recycling.

The European Space Agency is also backing projects testing the viability of lab-grown meat and cell-based foods in microgravity and higher radiation environments.

How These Technologies Can Be Applied To Agriculture On Earth

Space farming technologies like controlled environment agriculture have significant potential for improving food security, resource conservation and sustainability on Earth too. This is especially as climate change causes increasingly volatile weather events and growing seasons.

“The technologies with the clearest Earth impact are hydroponics, aeroponics, LED lighting, closed-loop water and nutrient management, sensor-rich climate control, and increasingly autonomous greenhouses,” Professor Sylvester Kaczmarek, professor at OPIT- Open Institute of Technology, told Forbes in an email.

He added: “Those are already moving into urban farms, high-tech greenhouses , and harsh-climate production. Cultivated meat and other bioreactor-based food systems are promising, but they are still much earlier in commercial maturity.”

Controlled environment agriculture and vertical farming are already being used by commercial vertical farms and indoor facilities using systems like IntraVision’s GravityFlow.

This allows plants to be grown in movable GrowBoxes, or specialized containers that automatically move through a sequence of controlled environments and growth stages.

It requires considerably less floor space due to dense, vertical flow racks, while closed-loop management regulates temperature, airflow, humidity and nutrient delivery without depending on open air or sunlight.

In dense metropolitan areas, vertical farming systems can produce high yields relative to their physical footprint, fitting into spaces like warehouses and retrofitted buildings.

It can also slash transport costs, as growing fresh food directly inside cities can heavily reduce long-distance shipping costs and food waste.

In drought-prone and arid regions, closed-loop hydroponic and aeroponic setups can recycle a significant amount of water, unlike traditional open-field agriculture, which consistently loses water to evaporation. Deserts or degraded lands with poor soil quality can still produce some reliable harvests as well.

Similarly, in extreme Arctic, sub-arctic or high-altitude climates, communities can get fresh greens and vegetables year round, with controlled environment agriculture, regardless of freezing temperatures or short growing seasons. These vegetables can be exceptionally difficult to grow in these conditions otherwise.

Enclosed structures can shield crops from unseasonal frosts, heavy storms and climate disruptions too, which can considerably affect yields by causing diseases.

In other cases, such as isolated environments like remote island nations, military bases and research stations in inhospitable conditions, supply chains may be fragile, unreliable and expensive.

As such, controlled environment agriculture can help ensure a steady supply of fresh vegetables and produce in these conditions.

“Where these technologies outperform conventional agriculture is in high-value, perishable crops such as leafy greens, herbs, microgreens, and some greenhouse vegetables, where year-round, local, predictable production matters,” Kaczmarek said.

He added: “These systems also matter where skilled growers are scarce, because automation can compensate for labour and expertise constraints.”

Why Terrestrial Implementation Remains Tricky

One of the biggest challenges in implementing space farming technologies like controlled environment agriculture on Earth is the highly sophisticated technology and extensive setup needed.

For example, NASA’s Advanced Plant Habitat (APH) on the ISS uses around 180 sensors to independently monitor and regulate water, temperature and air composition without needing direct crew intervention.

While the end result may be a highly autonomous system, the initial capital expenditures remain extremely high, which could be a barrier for several developing nations which are facing the worst of climate change.

Controlled environment agriculture can also consume enormous quantities of energy , due to heavy reliance on artificial LED lighting and climate control, which can run for most of the day. This can drive up both carbon footprints and utility bills.

As such, they may also be vulnerable to single points of failure in some cases, as power outages, software glitches or irrigation equipment breakdowns could potentially ruin an entire harvest within hours. Backup generators may also not be enough to handle the full scale of operations in such situations.

Operational overheads, such as automated system maintenance and specialized labour may also be high. Not only could these be very expensive, but they could be difficult to consistently source in many regions as well.

Limited crop diversity is another challenge, as most controlled environment agriculture facilities may only be able to grow crops like leafy greens and herbs reliably and economically, rather than staple caloric field crops like rice, wheat and corn.

As such, while space farming technologies can certainly help in certain specialized solutions, it is still a long way away from replacing traditional agriculture.

“I would not present space farming as a universal answer to food insecurity. It is better understood as a resilience layer. It can protect parts of the food system from drought, heat, supply disruption, and land scarcity, but it works best alongside conventional agriculture, not instead of it,” Kaczmarek pointed out.

Where Space Farming Could Make A Difference

While traditional agriculture will not become obsolete anytime soon, space farming technologies like controlled environment agriculture can potentially help significantly in areas which struggle with little water, land and extreme climates.

As Earth faces increasing resource constraints, these technologies could become more valuable in arid, high-altitude and remote regions. However, high capital expenditure and energy use remain significant barriers in more widespread adoption.

“The real market opportunity for the next decade is overwhelmingly on Earth, not in space. Space is the proving ground. Earth is the commercial scale opportunity. The risk is overhyping these systems as a silver bullet. They are powerful tools, but only when matched to the right crops, the right places, and the right energy model,” Kaczmarek noted.