3 Astronauts

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/15CQzAfpNi_wvgNvVb9i_XD7AG9YdKo6K/edit?usp=drivesdk&ouid=102877130113284958401&rtpof=true&sd=true

https://youtu.be/K1IPm82IsJc

Our project is to make space farming easily for astronauts during their journey to Mars to offer food and oxygen for them.

Our solution depends on horizontal hydroponics system mainly but we did many changes to make it suits to be an agricultural way in the space.

As we decided to use coconut coir instead of the soil to fix roots of plants in their net cups.

And we decided to use a nutrient solution instead of water to offer to planets what they need of minerals to grow .

And we change the design of the system to grow in it huge amount of plants in a small area to give astronauts food and oxygen which they can get oxygen and put them in pipes from a pipe connects a hole in the room of plants.

And we provide the room with temperature and light sensors to enable astronauts to control the plants' environment.

We used LEDs instead of sun which from them they can control physical properties of plants like its crispy depends on the amount of light but mainly plants depends on red and blue lights.

And absolutely they should take care about the pressure and offers the air to make plants grow like on the earth.

It is applicable as it is a mix between many solutions that are did before as it is all their advantages from save water and recycle it to offer huge amount of food in small area and in any season.

Our project can also be the way of farming on Mars.

We hope that our project will make live on Mars real .

We used internet, YouTube to search and Nasa website to get knowledge and study prior solutions.

We used blue and red light because red helps to grow, but quickly and blue reduces growth, the lighting will become red and violet like in these photos:

Astronauts can control the temperature with an external controller to enable growing different plants that are grown in different seasons.

The temperature will appear on the screen outside the room so that the astronauts can see what is going on inside to reduce the speed of the transpiration process.

We used the cup net to stabilize the plant because without gravity, the plant grows at an angle of 60 .

The room can provide astronauts with food and oxygen and also they can live in it like in NASA experimented with living a space scientist on a wheat farm for ten days without oxygen.

And instead of the air pump that we use on Earth to pump water up we will depend on pumping without gravity by the water tanks that Nasa used in the rockets but it will be filled with nutrient solution instead of water like this:

and finally , we used coconut coir instead of soil as said before and they look like that:

But The soil of some planets can be exploited for the availability of some elements and the addition of some other materials to it, such as our use of coconut.

But what about the nutrient solution?

We used nutrient solution to give the plants what they need and the ratio of nutrients are different between the kinds of plant.

the Essential nutrients are:

The percentage of the Nitrogen will be From 50 to 150 gram per the cubic meter

And the phosphorous will be from 50 to 80 ppm

potassium: from 50 to 200 ppm

Calcium and Magnesium : from 35 to 50 ppm

micro elements: from 15 to 20 ppm

The salty of the water 1000 ppm

age of the cycle: from 40 to 45 day

Number of elements is 13

The pH of the coconut coir between 6.5 to 7.5

If it increased or low the pH there will be problems and some elements will precipitate in the solution and the plant will not benefit from it

We will sterilize the water by using h2o2 or potassium permanganate

And we will irrigate the plants after 15 minutes for 2 minutes

We can plant in The cubic meter in vertical farming for about 40 plants unlike traditional farming we was plant 16 plants in one cubic meter.

By this way we will rationalize 95% of water unlike the traditional farming.

During our journey in search we get information mainly from Nasa that helped us to know all challenges that can faces us in space farming and that is one of them :

https://www.nasa.gov/content/growing-plants-in-space

This link was our start as from it we understand the space farming and the past experiments that are did in space farming.

From it we knew from where we will get light and what plants needs and the challenges that faces space farming.

And esa like this link:

https://blogs.esa.int/orion/2017/12/18/working-on-the-water-tank/

Space apps challenge gives us amazing memories that will make us happy when we remember them.

It gives us experience in searching, teamwork and cooperate to make a solution that can help humanity.

"Have seeds will travel " was an inspiring and attractive name so we choose it because it inspired us by how farming will be on mars ? Is that can be real?

We hope that our project will be the way of farming on mars and will help Nasa's astronauts reach mars.

All challenges that we met we solve them together by cooperate and absolutely by engineering design process in build our project.

We thanks all scientists, engineers and astronauts who by their experiences and knowledge we make our project.

https://www.nasa.gov/content/growing-plants-in-space

https://rurallivingtoday.com/hydroponics/hydroponics-vs-soil/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ww2TP_tU7o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MfWARdoF-o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1Gxn_nfgWA

https://extension.psu.edu/hydroponics-systems-and-principles-of-plant-nutrition-essential-nutrients-function-deficiency-and-excess

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtXuj_SzNTg

https://www.nasa.gov/johnson/HWHAP/artificial-gravity

https://blogs.esa.int/orion/2017/12/18/working-on-the-water-tank/

#hydroponics #agriculture #space #spacefarming

This project has been submitted for consideration during the Judging process.