Food could soon be grown in space

The European Space Agency (ESA) is assessing the viability of growing lab-grown food in orbit and on other planets.

ESA is conducting the research in an attempt to reduce the financial burden of feeding an astronaut, which currently costs up to £20,000 per day.

The experts say that the experiment is a first step to developing a pilot food production plant on the International Space Station in two years from now.

Dr. Aqeel Shamsul - the CEO and founder of Frontier Space, the company developing the concept with boffins at Imperial College London - said that lab-grown food is imperative if NASA's ambition to make humans a multi-planetary species is to be achieved.
He told BBC News, "Our dream is to have factories in orbit and on the moon.
"We need to build manufacturing facilities off-world if we are to provide the infrastructure to enable humans to live and work in space."

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