Nanoracks Module
Private space company Nanoracks has signed an agreement with investors from the UAE to build orbital greenhouses for growing edible plants. According to Nanoracks director Jeffrey Manber, plants that can survive in space will solve the problem of food shortage here on Earth. A considerable number of experiments in this area speak in favor of this hypothesis.
According to Manber, there is no urgent need to grow vegetables in space to feed people on the planet (at least not yet). Rather, extreme extraterrestrial conditions are convenient to use to create new mutant species that can thrive in unfavorable regions of our planet. This task is becoming very urgent in the light of rapidly increasing climate change.
It is for this reason that Nanoracks plans to launch the StarLab orbital agrotechnical complex this year. It will serve as a greenhouse and research center for growing new plants with improved characteristics. Whether scientists will be able to obtain practically useful plants in space conditions faster than to breed them with the help of gene modifications on Earth remains a question. If the Nanoracks project becomes a reality, we will know the answer very soon.
