Farmbots, flavour pills and zero-gravity beer: inside the mission to grow food in space

University of Melbourne researchers are hoping their ‘farmbot’ prototype will help grow vegetables in space. Photograph: Penny Stephens/The Guardian

Three robots are growing vegetables on the roof of the University of Melbourne’s student pavilion. As I watch, a mechanical arm, hovering above the crop like a fairground claw machine, sprays a carefully measured dose of water over the plants.

The greens themselves look fairly terrestrial – cos lettuce, basil, coriander and moth-eaten kale – but they are actually prototypes for a groundbreaking research mission to grow fresh food in outer space.