She imagines industrial activity in space, freeing up land on Earth. Hollywood directors shooting films in orbit. And botanists traveling back and forth to check on their Space Gardens. She and her colleagues are currently seeking funding to help make their concept a space-going reality. The model, made by London-based design firm Millimetre, is for display only. A real version, if it ever flies, would also be uninhabited by humans, at least initially. I ask why her team was so desperate to come up with an aesthetically pleasing design, in that case. It’s “something that can recapture the public’s imagination,” she explains.
But is it practical? The thin, lobe-bearing arms that protrude from Space Garden look very fragile. Ekblaw says these telescopic appendages will typically be retracted. “Most of the time, the structure looks a little more like a berry—without those spindly arms,” she adds. When closed, the lobes will shield plants at the center, behind their thick windows, from light—but the structure can open up in order to let light reach the plants. It’s a mechanically controlled alternative to Earth’s day-night cycle.
Eventually, Ekblaw suggests, astronauts might occasionally stop by Space Garden to collect samples from it. Open-source data tracking the environmental conditions on board, and plant growth rates, would also add to our understanding of how to cultivate food successfully in space, she says.
When I show Space Garden to Dixon, he says it looks “fancy” and immediately opines that there might not be much need to grow food in space anytime soon: “We can arm ourselves with enough supplies to manage that.” He says he cannot see “large-scale” gardens floating around in space, but he does say that the psychological benefit of having familiar plants alongside astronauts is “a good idea.”
Alistair Griffiths, director of science at the UK’s Royal Horticultural Society, was involved in a project that sent rocket seeds—an apt choice—to the ISS with British astronaut Tim Peake in 2015. Of the Space Garden idea, given its complicated shape, he says there could be some practical challenges when transporting such a design, but he praises the overall approach: “I think it should be beautiful and linked in to nature.”
Gardens here on Earth are incredibly diverse. They contain plants and design features that represent the personalities of the people behind them. Space gardens might be no different. Given the chance, green-fingered astronauts will surely bring their preferences with them.
Dixon, for one, has long experimented with barley seeds, sending many to orbit and back to Earth, with much of his research supported by the Glenlivet whiskey distillery in Scotland. “It’s my bucket list. I’m going to grow barley on the moon,” he says.
For Griffiths, another option comes to mind. “I would grow a strawberry plant,” he says after a moment considering the many possibilities. “But a strawberry plant that also has bright red petals.” Fragaria x ananassa is the cultivar he selects. If it’s going all the way to space, it’s got to be extra pretty as well as edible, he argues.
Someone’s going to have to come up with a Space Dairy, though, if anyone up there wants fresh cream with their cosmic strawbs.
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