Plants are crucial to human existence. They provide a source of sustenance, nutrient recycling, atmospheric replenishment, water cycling, and physiological health for life on Earth as well as in space. The human spaceflight realm poses unique challenges for engineers who develop facilities to conduct plant experiments, grow crops, and design biology-based life support systems for off-Earth habitation. Fractional or microgravity strongly influences fluid and thermal management directly and indirectly in both the organisms themselves and their engineered life support facilities. Scarce resources such as mass, volume, power, crew involvement, and data must be minimized through all mission phases. The current spaceflight facilities vary in complexity from simple Petri dishes to closed-loop feedback-controlled chambers that regulate biologically relevant parameters such as photosynthetic illumination intensity and quality, diurnal cycle, temperature, relative humidity, moisture, atmospheric constituency, and even fractional gravity. Learning how to grow plants efficiently and effectively will become increasingly relevant as humans journey farther and farther out into the solar system.

植物对人类生存至关重要。它们为地球和太空中的生命提供食物来源、养分循环、大气补给、水循环和生理健康。载人航天领域对工程师提出了独特的挑战，他们需要开发设施来进行植物实验、种植农作物以及设计基于生物学的生命支持系统以供地外居住。分数或微重力直接或间接地强烈影响生物体本身及其工程生命支持设施的流体和热管理。在所有任务阶段，必须尽量减少质量、体积、功率、机组人员参与和数据等稀缺资源。目前的航天设施复杂程度各不相同，从简单的培养皿到调节生物相关参数的闭环反馈控制室，例如光合光照强度和质量、昼夜循环、温度、相对湿度、水分、大气选区，甚至分数重力。随着人类越来越远地进入太阳系，学习如何高效和有效地种植植物将变得越来越重要。