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Thu 10 Oct 2006Plants to sustain long-distance space travel
Food-producing plants will become a regular feature of long-distance space travel. They will provide nutrition, but will also scrub the air clean of carbon dioxide, deliver fresh oxygen, purified water and even deal with human waste.
Just 50 square metres of plants per person, a seven by seven-metre patch, should be enough to deliver all of these benefits, according to the head of crop research for Nasa's "advanced life support programme", Dr Raymond Wheeler.
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