"A greenhouse in Antarctica to grow in space"

In Antarctica they experimented greenhouse cultivation to take it to space and maybe to the moon or Mars. We talked about it on the last day of the Food Journalism Festival with George Boscheri, aerospace engineer of Thales Alenia Space in Turin, who has been in Antarctica to test innovative soilless cultivation systems. "We have been studying for some time how to produce resources for astronauts, and food that remains tasty over time without losing its properties - said Giorgio Boscheri -. Till today our largest international project in this field is EDEN ISS, which led us to cultivate in Antarctica, because it is an environment that has so many analogies with space ». In the greenhouse housed on a German base with an outside temperature of -30 degrees they have grown tomatoes, peppers, herbs, salads and cucumbers without using the soil, "and the challenge of the future will be to understand whether this cultivation system is economically viable compared to the transport of food from Earth - continues Boscheri -. Now the project is in its second year of operation, and the data have already been communicated to the world scientific community ». His was one of the interventions in the panel «Made in Italy food grown on Mars. The space as a great opportunity to communicate Italian food innovation "in which the first foods in space were also discussed, which were in the form of puree in tubes, up to the last experimentation of preparing biscuits in the space which required a cooking for two hours.