Manned missions beyond Earth orbit face the rather important problem of how to feed the crew and maintain the capsule environment for years on end without any resupply from home. The product of a NASA challenge, AstroGro is a space garden pod aimed at addressing this problem. It relies on 3D printing to produce a system that can be replicated and modified while in the depths of space.

One way to avoid carrying hundreds of tons of groceries and other consumables into space is to use plants as supplemental food as well as a way of recycling air and human waste and removing toxins, such as outgassing from equipment, aboard ship. In addition, fresh food and the sight of growing plants would be a major boost to crew morale.

The idea of an onboard space garden is an old one and basically sound, but it's also a tricky one to implement. It not only has to grow enough food for the table, but it needs to be flexible enough to adapt to the crew's changing needs, scaling up and down as demand requires. It also has to be easily modifiable as technology back home finds improvements.

Part of NASA's 2015 Print Your Own Food challenge aimed at creating new technologies to feed astronauts on deep space missions, AstroGro took the printing angle in a different direction. While other entries concentrated on printing food, AstroGro designed a 3D-printed device for growing food.