Elliot Roth, founder of 1% for the Planet business member Spira, was selected as a NASA analog astronaut to participate in an exciting study: growing edible algae on the moon. Well, not on the moon exactly, at least not yet. On September 7th, Elliot, along with a group of fellow astronauts, will embark on an expedition to HI-SEAS, a remote location in Hawaii that will simulate living on the moon.
There, the team will be growing and eating algae to test the hypothesis that fresh spirulina algae is preferred to dried spirulina algae and that it provides similar nutritional properties while being grown quickly on minimal resources. Previous research has been conducted by NASA and ESA on dried algae as a source of nutrition, but astronauts reported that they did not like the taste. Fresh algae has no taste, along with the benefit of being grown quickly on site.
Could Spirulina Algae be the key to life in space? We’ll just have to wait and see. Read more about the project and keep up with the expedition here.
All photos by Spira
