The University of Arizona is working on the South
Pole Food Growth Chamber Project, a self-contained greenhouse meant to
grow food for Antarctic researchers and the first greenhouse to be shipped
to the South Pole.
The 300-square-foot Food Growth Chamber can
yield fresh vegetables at a rate of 10,000 heads of lettuce a year. Other
produce, such as spinach and strawberries, will grow at a slower pace.
But the project also is seeding more ambitious dreams.
"We
are interested in the South Pole because we are interested in going to
Mars," said Gene Giacomelli, director of the University of Arizona's
controlled environment laboratory.
Growing plants could be an
integral part of any mission to the Red Planet, and no other environment
on Earth resembles Mars more than the South Pole. Mars might even be more
hospitable.
Astronauts on spacecraft heading out on the
months-long flight to Mars could have to rely on similar greenhouses for
fresh food.
"What they can't take with them, they will have to
grow," Giacomelli said. But first, the project will be sent
south.
In October, the greenhouse will be shipped 9,000 miles to
McMurdo Station, the coastal Antarctic research station 2,000 miles south
of New Zealand. From there, it will be flown aboard a C-130 cargo plane
800 miles to the South Pole.
Then, a few hundred yards from the
Pole, it will be reassembled inside the Amundsen Scott Research Station.
The hydroponic greenhouse will yield fresh produce and psychological
relief to the 200-plus researchers who live on the world's most forbidding
piece of real estate, said Phil Sadler, a Tempe, Ariz., botanist and
Antarctic veteran working on the project. "The South Pole is just a
miserable place," said Sadler, who has spent six years in Antarctica and
several months of that at the South Pole.
The climate is cold, of
course. Winter temperatures are 200 degrees Fahrenheit colder than Tucson
at the same time of year. The air is thin; the station sits 9,000 feet
above sea level on a sheet of ice more than two miles thick.
Researchers at Amundsen Scott are isolated on the glacier for
eight and one-half dark months of the year. Aircraft landing skis freeze
to the glacier any time except summer, Sadler said.
The 50 or so
scientists who spend their winters at the research center can't get fresh
produce and often must eat astronaut-style dried vegetables.
But
researchers in such a forbidding environment tend to enjoy time off in the
presence of plants. One-third of the Food Growth Chamber is set up to be a
small lounge to take advantage of the psychological impact of the
greenery.
"It's got full-spectrum light, it smells good, and it's
got humidity," Sadler said.
The only other artificial light at the
station is fluorescent or incandescent, like that inside an office.
And the research station's cold, dry air makes life an exercise in
olfactory deprivation, so much so that catching a whiff of greenery is a
pleasant distraction, Sadler said.
When Antarctic workers would
fly back to New Zealand, the floral scents would be overwhelming, Sadler
said.
"When we used to land in Christchurch, it seemed like we
could smell every plant on the island," he said.
This article was published by USA
TODAY at 5/26/2003 |
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