Abstract
ASTROBOTANY: THE FUTURE OF MANKIND
Human survival depends on the plants as they supply food. To survive humans on earth, they supply nutrition, recycle nutrients, replenish the atmosphere, maintain water cycle for the human life. In a similar vein, plants will be necessary for human settlement in extra-terrestrial space in the future. The major obstacles for human space exploration missions is to create facilities to cultivate crops, conduct plant studies, and create biology-based life support systems(BLSS) for beyond-Earth human settlement. Symbiosis between the human and other organisms’ specifically higher plant and bacteria is very essential for bioregenerative life support systems which regenerate resources and produce fresh food. Thereby interest in plant space biology has grown recently. To study the condition of plants growth in space, astrobotany was first established by the Russian astronomer Gavriil Adrianovich Tikhov who was also one of the pioneers of astrobiology. The term "astrobotany" was first used in 1945 by Tikhov, who was among the first scientists to use the term "astrobiology." He established the Department of Astrobotany at Alma-Ata Observatory in 1947, bringing together biologists, physicists, students, and botanists to investigate the reflectance spectra of plants living in various environments. The most significant projects are European Space Agency’s MELISSA (Micro-Ecological Life Support System Alternative) launched in the late 1980s and active for over 30 years, and NASA’s Veggie experiments that has successfully produced vegetables such as lettuce, radishes, and zinnias in space.