{"id":441042,"date":"2026-10-29T01:26:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T01:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/441042\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T01:26:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T01:26:08","slug":"space-week-seminar-explores-the-future-of-off-earth-farming-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/441042\/","title":{"rendered":"Space week seminar explores the future of off-earth farming | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Space<\/p>\n

Helen Navach, junior mechanical engineering major, opens up her presentation titled \u201cRegolith to Rations\u201d at the IDEAS for Us UCF HIVE event, in the Student Union Egmont Key Room 224 on Friday. The Astraeus research team joined the IDEAS for Us UCF chapter in honor of UCF’s annual Space Week for a special “Hive: Think & Do Tank” focused on growing food on the moon.<\/p>\n

Amaya Harris<\/p>\n

UCF students and guest faculty members used examples from research projects and science fiction to discuss the potential of future self-sustainable bases on the moon and Mars in the Student Union’s Egmont Key room on Friday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Members of Students for the Exploration and Development of Space\u00a0and environmental action organization\u00a0IDEAS for Us\u00a0UCF branch<\/a> shared ideas on how to oversee Project Astraeus<\/a>, an initiative focused on successfully growing crops on the moon and Mars by experimenting with regolith simulant.<\/p>\n

According to NASA<\/a>, regolith simulants are made of geological material from Earth that mimics the properties of different planetary and lunar surfaces.<\/p>\n

Helen Navach, junior mechanical engineering major and competition team lead for Project Astraeus, opened her presentation focused on mushrooms that can turn regolith simulant and recycled waste into food, soil and building material.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Navach said the cost to transport supplies from Earth to space is a major problem they’re trying to solve.<\/p>\n

“Every kilogram that\u2019s sent to Mars costs an enormous amount of money,”\u00a0Navach said. “And we can\u2019t really have the Mars crew wait on a resupply mission for food.”<\/p>\n

\"Space<\/p>\n

In the Student Union’s Egmont Key Room, junior biomedical science major Sachita Saravanan discusses the possibilities and struggles of medical implementation into food grown in space at the IDEAS for Us UCF HIVE event on Friday. “There’s very little research between men and women and how they react to conditions in space,” Saravanan said.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Amaya Harris<\/p>\n

The fix, Navach said, is the team’s goal to repurpose materials found on the moon and Mars for other needs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe answer would be in-situ resource utilization<\/a>,” Navach said. “We make what you need from what\u2019s already there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Navach’s presentation demonstrated how the research team is testing the ability of mushrooms\u00a0to survive and repurpose\u00a0regolith simulant.<\/p>\n

“The big idea is that we use one organism\u2014mushrooms,\u201d Navach said. “We can use mushrooms to break down the rocks, absorb the bad parts of the regolith, and be used for future crop growth.”<\/p>\n

\"Space<\/p>\n

Dr. Jennifer Fogarty engages with students at the IDEAS for Us UCF HIVE event on Friday\u00a0in the Student Union’s Egmont Key Room for an open discussion following a presentation. Fogarty is the Chief Scientist at UCF\u2019s Center for Aerospace and Extreme Environments Medicine and former Chief Scientist for NASA\u2019s Human Research Program.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Amaya Harris<\/p>\n

Dr. Amy M. Gregory, Rosen College of Hospitality Management’s representative for UCF\u2019s Space Council, explained just how big of a role the hospitality side of space travel really plays.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I always ask the NASA people, ‘What made you pick that plant?'” Gregory said. “Because our chefs would have a different idea.”<\/p>\n

Gregory, an associate professor and endowed chair of Space Tourism programming and initiatives, said some of the foods the Rosen College chefs are currently looking to integrate into space foods are cilantro, tofu and ginger for its many health benefits and sharp taste and smell.<\/p>\n

\u201c[In space] you lose your sense of smell and taste to a degree,\u201d Gregory said. \u201cAnd so, with ginger being pungent, it actually allows people to taste something.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sachita Saravanan, junior biomedical science major and lead of the Astraeus Research Team, discussed her research on the medical challenges that come with space travel and the possibilities space agriculture provides for combating these issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cAstronauts go through tons of risks during space travel,\u201d Saravanan said. \u201cA lot of their health is taking a direct hit, especially their bone and heart health.\u201d<\/p>\n

The research prioritized growing basil off-Earth. Saravanan specifically highlighted its medicinal value and its possibility to survive in extreme environments like the Moon and Mars.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Saravanan said if it is successful, growing basil off-Earth could allow astronauts to produce their own medicine.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is a good herb that’s often used for medicinal purposes, but outside of just vitamin K, it has something called phenolic compounds,\u201d Saravanan said. \u201cUtilizing those phenolics is very useful for perhaps creating medicinal supplements that astronauts can take that they themselves sort of grow as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Jennifer Fogarty, chief scientist at UCF\u2019s Center for Aerospace and Extreme Environments Medicine, said it’s more than a person\u2019s physical health that is at risk when they travel to space, but their mental health as well.<\/p>\n

While consulting with high-end supplement company Astrobiome<\/a>, Fogarty and her team conducted deep data analysis for a research project on the gut health of Japanese centenarians. Fogarty said they learned it’s more than just eating the food that has positive effects, but even the act of planting the crops can contribute to healthy living.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s even beyond the idea of the fresh food and the fermentation process,\u201d Fogarty said. \u201cBut the idea of just their hands on the soil that helps somehow, it was pretty remarkable biological outcomes.\u201d<\/p>\n

During her time as the chief scientist for NASA\u2019s Human Research Program, Fogarty’s work centered on human physiological adaptation, healthspan and performance in deep space.<\/p>\n

Fogarty said over her 30-year career in aerospace, she has grown\u00a0frustrated with the hesitation the space industry has had in integrating their research on extreme conditions on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’ve been frustrated by the fact that I haven’t had an avenue to get that message out more directly, nor be in a place where I can actually enable commercialization directly,\u201d Fogarty said. \u201cIt’s not the concept of profit; this is a humanitarian need.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dr. Michael Gilbrook, associate lecturer in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies,\u00a0used topics from the science fiction book \u201cThe Moon Is a Harsh Mistress\u201d by Robert A. Heinlein to connect back to the discussion of agriculture in space.<\/p>\n

The novel features a civilization on the moon that has begun growing crops and found a way to transport them back to Earth without using any rocket propellant.<\/p>\n

Gilbrook said, like in the book, exporting materials will deplete the already existing ones, giving students a reminder of how important their continued research is.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lunar and Martian regolith is very unlike soil on Earth and is unsuitable for raising plants,\u201d Gilbrook said. \u201cThe kind of basic research done by the SEDS teams will be essential to figuring out how to create a substrate for growing plants if we ever hope to grow crops to support human settlements on these planets.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Helen Navach, junior mechanical engineering major, opens up her presentation titled \u201cRegolith to Rations\u201d at the IDEAS for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":441043,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[4401,115,139,141,140],"class_list":["post-441042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-academics","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}