The first humans to travel to Mars will face a lot of challenges. The potential for a significant amount of bone density loss on the three-year mission is one that has been discussed, but no solution has been found. If they are only on the station for six months, then the two 10-month space trips of a mission to the red planet could be a concern.
It isn't beneficial to bone density in its usual form, but a fragment called human parathyroid hormone is.
Kevin Yates, a graduate student at UC Davis, is the only one who has bothered to eat injections for PTH.
The American Chemical Society has a credit.
The team used a standard technique to give a plant a specific gene, and the bacteria seemed to do its job well.
The assumption is that only 10% of the PTH that the plant produces will actually make it into the human system, but that hasn't been proven yet.
Yates and his colleagues hope to increase the output of the lettuce they created by selecting strains with the highest rate of characteristic they are looking for.
Credit.
If they find a strain they are happy with, they will want to test it on the space station.
There are areas on Earth that suffer from a lack of traditional medicine, and a lack of PTH could cause degenerative bone disease in those populations.
NASA isn't planning its first Mars mission until the 2030s, so there is still plenty of time to perfect the crop.
You can learn more.
S pace-grown lettuce could help astronauts avoid bone loss.
Space bioprocess engineering on the horizon.
The Space Station's Veggies are to be launched.
Gardening for the Moon is a UT program.
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