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The efficiency and output of commercial agricultural as it exists today is greatly influenced by natural environmental conditions. Production under a controlled environment such as a Vegetable Factory concept may be considered to overcome these problems. The Modular Growing Component Salad Machine (MGCSM), which was built in 1992, has recently undergone major design changes. Use of red and blue LEDs are being considered to replace high-pressure sodium (HPS) lamps. This modification can reduce mass, weight and energy consumption. If this growing system can be manufactured at an affordable cost to be used for profitable agricultural production on Earth for growing flavorful, pesticide free, healthier vegetables with minimal labor requirements.

An Efficient Growing System is always in need for both terrestrial and extraterrestrial environments. The Multi-layered Hydroponics Growing System (MHGS) was developed and tested as a potential commercial scale production system for leaf crops. Six crops of Bibb lettuce (Lactuca sativa, Cultivars Butter Crunch) was grown successfully with a 40 percent shade cloth to diffuse light intensity, which helped to improve quality and palatability. At the same time the Overhead Hydroponics Growing System (OHGS) was developed for growing cucumber (Cucumis sativus L. Cultivar- Summer dance) with apical shoots slightly angled upward to give orientation of growth direction while enhancing lateral branch growth. Bib lettuce can be grown by utilizing the diffused light provided by the cucumber grown above, eliminating the need for the shade cloth.

Food Production systems to be used in space exploration must be very efficient in mass, weight and energy. We normally accept natural plant growth habits and design a growing system to accommodate their growth. Selection of dwarf varieties and faster growing varieties may contribute to increased efficiency but dwarf plants are not usually very productive. If the plant growth habit was altered in such a manner so that the growing density increases without sacrificing productivity, greater efficiency can be achieved. Our Automatic Growing and Harvest System (AGHS) has the capability of self-propagating, auto-growing and auto-harvesting. Presently, new modifications are being made to double the growing density by dividing the existing growth chamber to two separate chambers so that two plants can be grown. A Dual Pinch Roller Driver mechanism has to be built as a part of the modification.

An efficient Food Production (FP) system is needed for long space exploratory missions. Conventional approaches to starting crops from seeds are very inefficient. These approaches require seeds, growth medium, an automatic seeder, growth chamber for seedlings, transplanter, production growth chamber and control system specifically designed for all these systems. Present technology cannot offer complete needs specific to extraterrestrial applications. By selecting ideal crops for their nutritional values and propagation methods, unnecessary mass, weight, energy and labor associated to perform all the aforementioned tasks can be mostly eliminated while gaining a great benefit which makes the food production system very efficient.

An autonomous plant growing system will be needed for optimal food production in space. Integrated food production (FP), air revitalization (AR) and water purification (WP) systems will offer major advantages over physical chemical systems for life support functions. Seeds and small plants, however, contribute little to AR and WP, as the amount of photosynthetically active biomass is much smaller than in fully-grown plants. From the time of seed germination, photosynthesis gradually increases and is terminated at harvest time. Under present technology, successive crops are grown to average out the supply and demand of available resources, with the resultant amount of energy expended for lighting and environmental controls remaining constant, regardless of plant size. The Automatic Growing and Harvest System (AGHS) has been developed to overcome these problems.

A Programmable Advance Life Support System (ALSS) that can accommodate all the demand changes necessary for life support must be developed particularly for bioregenerative functions. We have previously developed the Gravity Independent Photosynthetic Growing System (GIPGS)-a versatile multi-crop growing system), Automatic Plant Growing and Harvest System (APGHS). -a self-regenerating continuous food production systems, and the Inflatable Self-sufficient Growth Bags (ISGB). These systems can accommodate production of many other crops such as wheat, rice, lettuce, komatsuna, tomato, cucumber, sprout crops and fermented foods which can be all prepackaged in self-contained growth bags. GIPGS is capable of growing different crops and crops in different stages simultaneously with a high density and high-energy efficiency, APGHS has auto crop management for perpetual food production and auto harvest systems. Programmable logic controllers control most of these hardware functions.