Welcome to the first issue of Growing Space

Growing Space marks the start of a new chapter in the evolution of SyNRGE, LLC as it furthers its mission of using technology to grow plants in space into feeding of people on Earth. 

Growing Space highlights the recent activities of Dr Stutte, SyNRGE, LLC and its partners and provides updates on activities and interesting insights into changes occurring in indoor agriculture. 

Growing Space subscribers will have access to selected presentations, advance notice of upcoming events, offerings and early registration discounts on training and lectures as they become available. 

It is my deep conviction that humanity should not, and cannot, make an either/or choice on one vision on which to focus our time, talent and treasure.

• Exclusive focus on issues of Earth, ignores the marvels of space and devalues and limits our ability to innovate and create.
• Exclusive focus on outer space or interplanetary exploration, while ignoring the pressing issues on Earth ignores our responsibility to ourselves and to our planet.

Worms in Space?

At least three critical issues must be addressed when thinking about growing food on Mars.

•  It takes a LOT of fertilizer to grow the food you eat. It takes a minimum of 200 pounds of fertilizer per year to grow the food necessary to feed a 150 lb. person for a year. 
•  Nutrients available in the Martian regolith are not in forms that are available to support plant growth.
• A LOT of the resources used to grow food are either inedible or discarded from food preparation which becomes waste.

This research investigates the use of vermiculture (growing worms) as a biological solution to make nutrients from the Martian Regolith available, while at the same time recovering and recycling nutrients from inedible organic material produced by a crew.

This research was implemented in collaboration with students at the University of North Dakota during analog missions in the Inflatable Lunar Martian Habitat and funded through NASA and North Dakota Epscor grants.