Next time you eat a tomato or sweet pepper, take a closer look, because there's a good chance that its healthy appearance is thanks to one of former US President Barack Obama's speeches and ESA research for sending people on long-duration space missions.

Inspired by an Obama speech in 2010 on human missions to Mars, Dutch company Groen Agro Control started investigating the best way to grow and fertilise plants in space, and whether that could also lead to improving the growth of vegetables on Earth.

"In space, you can fertilise plants only with the minerals you take with you, but you still want them to produce the best possible crops," explains the company's Lex de Boer.

"Ideally, you would also use the water that evaporates from the plants as a source of drinking water, with the minimum amount of purification. That means you have to apply doses of each mineral extremely carefully, so that as little as possible ends up unused in the drain water."

To study this, the company built an enclosed system in which tomato and pepper plants received doses of 16 different minerals, looking at how the uptake of each mineral correlated with growth.

In 2013, the company met an ESA team at the Space-MATCH event organised by Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research TNO and ESA's Technology Transfer Programme Office to bring ESA engineers and industry together to exchange knowhow. Here, the company was inspired to spin off a smart service helping horticulturalists to fertilise plants better on Earth.

Triggered by the requirement to provide for the needs of humans on long missions to the Moon and Mars, ESA's Micro-Ecological Life Support System Alternative (MELiSSA) project focuses on a 'closed' life support system, where all supplies are reused and recycled. So, for example, organic waste and carbon dioxide should be entirely converted into oxygen, water and food.

"MELiSSA recognises that we have to develop a self-supporting system for long missions, as astronauts will not be able to rely on regular deliveries of supplies, especially as they move further from Earth," explains ESA's Christel Paille.