Photo: Kim Tunnicliffe / WBZ NewsRadio
LOWELL, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — Four students at the University of Massachusetts Lowell placed among the top 25 teams competing in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's "Deep Space Food Challenge," which calls for contestants to come up with sustainable food systems for space exploration.
The "Auto Terra Project" from UMass Lowell cultivated a self-sustaining box community garden that's portable and can grow a wide variety of vegetables on its own. Project CEO Ariel Shramko told WBZ's Kim Tunnicliffe how the agriculture-on-the-go works.
"It provides the plants with light and ideal growing conditions. Plants are happy in their little environment— they grow without need for intervention. This is a life dream, I'm still in shock we've made it this far," Shramko said.
The Auto Terra Project doesn't just look to the stars either, the team has made strides in addressing current food insecurity happening here on Earth. The official project website cites supply chain issues stemming from the pandemic as a root cause in world hunger, and says their device solves that problem by cutting out the need to go anywhere to get food. Because the community garden can grow on its own, families would not need to make trips to the supermarket or pantry.
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According to team member Elliott Perrone, the system can grow anything from lettuce and radishes to potatoes and tomatoes.
"It's a fully closed system: no air leaves the system, no water leaves the system— the only time things leave the system is when you purposefully open it and take your plant and produce out," Perrone said.
NASA officials issued the Deep Space Food Challenge more than a year ago, and say one problem teams will need to address is the loss of nutritional value that shelved food packages experience over time. The agency also recognizes that while the inventions could be great for space travel, they could also make for solutions to food insecurity in communities across the globe.
In Phase 2 of the Challenge, teams are competing for the grand prize of $1 million.
WBZ's Kim Tunnicliffe (@KimWBZ) reports.
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