Mattias Lepp

In 2005, I stumbled upon an article on Wired about NASA’s plans to grow plants during the Mars mission. At first this seemed nothing more than trivia, something to talk about at social events, but in 2009 I saw a research paper that claimed every year people throw away 20 billion dollars worth of house plants because they’ve forgotten to water or fertilize them. So I started tinkering with aeroponics. I quickly discovered that while it was very innovative, and probably great for NASA, it wasn’t ideal for home use because it consumes lots of energy, can be complicated to operate, and makes a lot of noise.

Keep ReadingShow less