Hello, my name is Sultan Alneyadi,
and I'm an astronaut living and working onboard the International Space Station.
We are currently orbiting 250 miles above Earth's surface.
But in the not so distant future, we'll be sending astronauts
on missions that go deeper in space than ever before.
To do that, we need to understand how to grow our own food in space.
Did you know that we have multiple plant facilities on board
the International Space Station?
Let's go check out what we have.
Just like humans,
other organisms need food to survive.
Most plants, algae and cyanobacteria synthesize
their own food from water, light and carbon dioxide.
These organisms are called photoautotrophs,
which are photosynthetic organisms that utilize energy from light
to synthesize organic molecules.
The light
energy from the sun converts the water and carbon dioxide into glucose,
a source of chemical energy for the plant and oxygen,
a waste product that we use to breathe.
This process is called photosynthesis, and it's through that process
that plants and other photoautotrophs fuel their growth
and reproduction.
Here,
in the Veggie facility, our plants receive their light
in the form of blue, red and green LED lights.
We have successfully grown
a variety of plants, including lettuce, Chinese cabbage,
mizuna mustard, red Russian kale, and zinnia flowers.
We also have another plant
growing facility called the Advanced Plant Habitat that has grown radish and hatch
chili peppers that past crew members had an opportunity to taste.
Currently, we are growing red robin dwarf tomato plants.
We are studying how different light settings and fertilizer
affect their growth.
Once maturity is reached, the crew
and I will have the chance to harvest them and maybe eat them.
We'll share
our feedback on their taste and how caring for the plants made us feel.
So a scientist can also study any psychologic
or behavioral impact of growing plants in space.
This study is significant
because it helps us learn how to grow our own food in space
as we prepare for Artemis missions to the Moon and to Mars.
So we do take care of the plants every day.
We monitor their habitat
and we do cleaning every day as well, if needed.
We do monitor any microbial growth and remove that when needed.
We can feed plants with water from the main
water inputs here, but we also have individual inserts
for an individual plants to receive their own water if needed.
And we have fans that control
the air and and out from the habitat.
And as you can see, we have different light settings.
As we mentioned, we have different LEDs that can
investigate the
effect of different lights on the plants.
You might be shocked to hear scientists estimate a whopping 50
to 80% of oxygen production, on Earth comes from oceanic plankton,
which includes drifting plants, algae and photosynthetic bacteria.
That's one big reason why we need to protect our oceans.
Thanks for exploring photosynthesis on station with me today.
I'm going to send it back to Earth so you can start your own plant experiments.
See you soon.