Barbara Belvisi - Growing Food in Space: The Ex Terra Podcast

Any long-term space mission will require growing food in space. Making that possible, as well as improving agricultural production in harsh climates on Earth, is the mission of Interstellar Lab, which is developing environment-controlled modules equipped with an automated aeroponics system.

Our guest on this edition of The Ex Terra Podcast is Barbara Belvisi, founder and CEO of Interstellar Lab. The company is developing durable and deployable modules that combine inflatable technology, 3D-printed high-performance materials, advanced food production & water and waste systems to support human life in any environment.

According to the company website, each module can grow 3OO+ species in a controlled-environment, monitored by our proprietary AI. All modules work stand-alone or plugged together, forming a station.

Barbara Belvisi is an entrepreneur passionate about space, biology, and AI. She started her career in finance at 22 investing in tech companies worldwide and launched several global initiatives to foster scientific innovation and entrepreneurship.

The youngest woman founder of a venture capital fund at 26, she is in the top 1O women in Tech in France and Forbes Top 1OO in Europe in 2O18. Self-taught in engineering and architecture, she spent a year with NASA engineers before launching Interstellar Lab to develop food production and habitation modules for sustainable living on Earth and space.

Growing food in space is certainly of interest to NASA, which led to Interstellar Lab winning a phase 1 award in NASA’s Deep Space Food Challenge for its Nutritional Closed-Loop Eco-Unit System, or NUCLEUS. The competition rewarded the best ideas for feeding astronauts on long-term space missions. It was organized in partnership with the Canadian Space Agency.

How does what happens in space affect your everyday life? The Ex Terra podcast is dedicated to introducing you to many of the interesting people involved in the commercial space industry, and taking you behind the scenes with many of the companies making significant contributions to the new space economy. The podcast is available on Anchor, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Breaker, Overcast, Pocketcasts and Radio Public.