The space veggies | Lauri Neuvonen | TEDxRheinMain

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences.
Lauri Neuvonen (space exploration enthusiast with a regular day-job) takes us on a grass-roots journey towards new worlds motivated and guided by one question: What does it mean to be human in space?

I'm on a journey towards the stars,
and I hope you'll join me.

I think there is a good reason for it.

I've been on this journey
for one and a half years now;

before that, I had nothing
to do with space.

I had not studied it,
I had not done any research,

I had not worked in the industry.

But I'm standing here. What happened?

First part of why
this all happened is life.

I just love life.

The picture here shows a small bird
sitting on a man-made stone structure

with the background
of rainforest in Madeira.

And actually there is some small life
growing out of the stone also.

This picture, I think, shows how complex
and how wonderful life really is.

I mean, those little plants
are growing almost from nowhere,

and the big rainforest in the background

is filled with all kinds
of wonderful things.

And actually the stone structure there
is life happening also.

We've made it; us, humans.

Me showing this picture here to you
is also life happening,

so life learns, life evolves,

and I can't think of anything else
that would make me wonder more.

But what's my relationship with life?

This life, this biological,
chemical thing that's happening?

I looked into a mirror one day,

when I was wondering
what I want to do with my life,

and I saw a man with a head
and these [arms] that can do this,

and a talking mouth,

and I realized that I have superpowers.

I mean, real superpowers!

You all have superpowers.

If we compare these to the life forms
elsewhere on this planet,

other life forms,
other things that we can see,

there is nothing like that.

We can imagine the future,
and we can act on it,

and that gives us superresponsibility.

Superpowers — superresponsibility.

And I feel responsible
towards life, towards all of you.

So, this is Earth, the pale blue dot,

and the picture from the '90s
taken by the Voyager spacecraft

from the outskirts of our Solar System.

If you look at Earth, that circle,
that little thing over there,

it looks so alone, so vulnerable,
so small and tiny.

All the life we know is confined
on that little planet.

All our eggs are basically in one basket,
and I think we need more baskets.

So I took that as my mission
to spread life outside Earth.

It's kind of a big thing, and pretty soon
I faced the question how to start.

As I said,

I had not worked in the industry
or done anything related to space,

so what does any guy in that situation do?

He finds a friend and starts a blog.

(Laughter)

Starting a blog is actually
a pretty good thing.

It makes you come out with your passion,
with this mission of mine,

so it broke the ice.

Before that, I was kind of intimidated
to talk about big things like these.

Now I'm prouder
and more confident about it.

Pretty soon after starting this blog,

I found something else
while doing some research for it,

the International Space Apps Challenge.

This is basically a huge problem-solving
competition organized by NASA.

When we participated in 2013,

there were something like
nearly 10,000 people participating.

There was a list of challenges.

Me and my friends decided to do
the one called 'Deployable Greenhouse,'

which was about building
a greenhouse, sending it to Mars,

and growing plants over there.

Pretty soon we understood

that just growing plants
on Mars is not enough,

we have to do a little bit better.

So I'll show you a little video clip
describing what happened.

(Video) [Mars. The final frontier.

Mankind's infinite aspiration to explore
has led us to colonize Mars.

So, Mr. Astronaut, how is life here?

You traveled miles
in a tin can to get here.

Now you live inside a tin can,
and you eat from a tin can.

Sounds like a good deal? Not to us.]

Lauri Neuvonen: So, we decided

the greenhouse can't be
just a life support system.

It has to provide the astronauts
with a life worth living,

providing oxygen, food,

and a garden-like environment
like this one over here,

and that will save their mental health.

And who are we? Space veggies!

Matti Liukku: At the beginning
there were just couple of us,

interested guys who knew
nothing about greenhouses,

but something about space.

We asked around for more people

and ended up with over
a dozen students and graduates,

from different fields such as physics,
architecture, and agriculture.

LN: Virtual collaboration
had a key role in our work.

We had four or five team members
in Tampere, on site all the time,

one of us was working from Germany,

and the rest of us scattered
all around Finland working from home.

This paid off
as our concept solution shows.

JJ: We ended up with an inflatable,
modular dome structure

in which the plants are grown in the wings

and the center part
provides shelter for living.

Philip Holm: Mars is, of course,
a somewhat hostile environment.

One danger is radiation.

Our idea is to blow sand
on top of the structure,

this reduces the transport weight
of the system.

The plants themselves are grown
in a hydroponic system

which can be later switched to use
organic or even Martian soil.

LN: Designing all this was great fun,

and in the end we are
really proud of our concept.

For more details, go check our webpage
and remember to vote for us.

(Video ends)

LN: Yeah, that brings back
a lot of memories.

We did actually pretty good, we won
the Deployable Greenhouse Challenge,

but that was not the best thing
we learned doing that thing.

If you wanted to do something like that

it's actually not that complicated.

We started off with tools
like pen and paper,

a Facebook group, and some Google Docs.

When we joined the competition,

what we were faced with first,
and what we found,

was this community,
these thousands of people

who were actually willing
to do work like this for free

just to do space exploration.

How wonderful!

That community actually can provide you
with all the rest of the tools you need,

all the skills you are lacking
at that point, and so forth,

it kind of supports you on this trip.

And what's great also is that these kind
of challenges give you access.

Access to actual professionals who can
help you forward with your project.

For example, a bunch of amateurs
like us got our project

on the top of a NASA expert,

and we got some feedback
from him and so forth,

he was mentoring us during this challenge.

If we had struck gold
with one of our ideas,

that would have spread
through that guy to the next guy,

and maybe we would have gotten funding,
more research tools, resources, et cetera.

So, access. That's pretty cool.

But still, the best thing I learned

- and I think I can speak
for the team also -

was about us, humans.

We are like cavemen still.

I mean, we are smart
and capable like I told you,

but we still have these prehistoric needs,
primal instincts, things like that.

For example, I'm sweating
like in a sauna right now,

because I'm excited.

Funny how, but it happens.

So we are human, and understanding
our needs is actually gold.

Those needs drive the way
we do business together,

how we do our personal relationships,
how we feel about ourselves,

and that space taught me
what it means to be human.

Pretty cool.

This is my dream.

It's a picture by a guy
named Rick Guidice from the '70s.

It shows this kind of a space torus
filled with pretty much normal life.

I think the best part in this picture
is in the lower left corner.

There are some people
chatting, very casually,

living a normal life in space.

That's probably a few years in the future,

but it teaches a lot.

If we take that picture,
and we want to create that thing,

it means we have to redesign
almost everything we have here on Earth

and take it to space,

if we want to obey
those needs that we have,

and I think we have to.

Let's take an example.

We've seen actually
pretty many good examples about this

during this evening,
for example, the robot,

but let's take a simpler example,

like that shirt the girl
is wearing over there.

If we want to have that shirt in space,

it can't be made
like we do it here on Earth.

We can't grow massive amounts of cotton
using huge amounts of water,

we have to do it in a simpler,
more sustainable way.

And if we design for space,

I think we can actually do
better designs for Earth,

and that will pay back sooner than later.

Doing that kind of design
is not a job for a rocket scientist,

well, only a rocket scientist
or a robot engineer.

We need all kinds of skills.
I mean, really, all kinds of skills.

If we're talking about space hotels,
we need someone who decorates them,

and makes them more comfortable,
and, you know, fun to live in.

We need all kinds of skills.

So, why to start doing space stuff?

It will pay back globally,
universally even,

we'll get life to continue,

and personally,
we'll learn about ourselves,

we'll learn about other people

and the place,
the universe we're living in.

I'll say let's embrace that challenge.

Thank you.

(Applause)