In what is a first for Africa, South Africa’s North-West University (NWU) is to launch a multidisciplinary research area devoted to space biology. Based in the university’s Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, it will draw on expertise from other faculties as well, including Engineering. Human exploration of the Moon is set to resume in a few years. Crewed missions to Mars are being conceived, although actual colonisation is still firmly in the future. Astronauts on sustained missions to both the Moon and Mars (with current propulsion technology, the average time a spacecraft takes to reach Mars from Earth is seven months) will need to be able to grow at least some of their own food.
