RESULTS
Creation of an effective life support system (LSS) is one of the main obstacles faced by
engineers in order to support long-duration spaceflight. Experiments with higher plants
conducted on board MIR and the Russian segment of the ISS, showed plant organisms are
capable of long-duration normal growth, full development and reproduction without deviations
under real spaceflight environment. These results allowed researchers to assume that properly
engineered greenhouses are potential candidates for biological subsystem and may be included
in the LSS for interplanetary spaceflight. Successful inclusion of greenhouse equipment in the
spacecrafts required a number of actions to the existing LSS, redistribution of material streams
inside an LSS, and increased functional load. Furthermore, involvement of a greenhouse in a LSS
of an interplanetary spacecraft required a number of technical tasks to be cleared, such as
selection of plant species and larger scale hardware development. To resolve the mentioned
tasks, real spaceflight-based and ground-based experiments are being conducted in the frame
of Russian Scientific Program (Sychev 2008).
Previous experiments revealed
that plants are capable of normal
growth, development and
proliferation if they are provided
with everything essential for life.
However, the absence of
phenotypic (observable
characteristics) and genotypic
changes (DNA changes) in plants
grown in microgravity for several
generations does not mean plants
do not experience some stresses
during these conditions. The
genomic expression patterns
analyzed revealed over 500
genes changed more than two-
fold. The results demonstrate an increase in the transcription of eliminating genes and
circumstantially indicate the presence of oxidative stress-causing factors aboard the
International Space Station. These factors are yet to be identified and their elimination could
improve productivity (Shagimardanova 2010).
ISS005E20305 - View of Cosmonaut Valery G. Korzun, Expedition 5
mission commander, posing at the Rasteniya-2 plant growth experiment
in the Service Module (SM)/Zvezda on the International Space Station.