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the australian farmer
fied plant-based foods and space-ready functional materials and pharmaceuticals – all readily translatable to Earth markets. Developments in modern gene technol- ogy and zero-waste plant production in controlled environments will also result. These breakthroughs in the emergent field of plant processing would firmly establish Australian competitiveness as a leader in high-value sustainable agricultural produc- tion, as well as enabling the moonshot of the 21st Century. “Since 2018 the Australian Government has invested more than $700 million in the civil space sector as part of its plan to grow the sector to $12 billion and add another 20,000 jobs by 2030.” Ref: Austrade, Apr 2021.
Everything must be supplied from the out- side making waste a luxury that cannot be afforded. As such, the lens of space pro- vides the ideal laboratory in which we can innovate to provide new opportunities for achieving sustainability on Earth. It would be remiss to not deploy the enabling tech- nology needed to achieve this for space, here on Earth, long before humans step onto Mars surface 20 plus years from now. In light of this, the goal of supporting long-term space habitation is an oppor- tunity to accelerate the research needed to reach sustainability on Earth. There is a strong rationale for plants to be the ultimate base material for food pro- duction in space due to their autotrophic nature – requiring carbon dioxide, light, water and a minimal set of nutrients to produce nutrients and oxygen to support human life. In return, humans use the car- bon fixed by plants as energy and complete the cycle by respiring carbon dioxide. Addi- tionally, the intricate metabolism of plants can provide a platform to produce complex flavour molecules, nutrients, and even bio- materials such as plastics. The innovation required to provide the nutrition and bio- materials to sustain long-term space habi- tation, and to deploy this technology here on Earth to improve sustainability, is an area where Australia can claim to have the critical mass that would be capable of pro- viding global leadership. The research needed to sustain human life in space will produce nutrient rich, highly efficient plants, nutritionally forti- “Australia is on the precipice of Space 2.0 – a new space age driven by commercial opportunities both in Space and here on Earth, distinct from the significant contributions we made during the first space age of the second half of the 20th Century.” Ref: ASPI June 2021.
Professor Matthew Gilliham, Director, Waite Research Institute, University of Adelaide.
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