Many people look to space and wonder if we might one day colonize other planets or heavenly bodies such as Mars or the Moon.  Before such exotic steps can be taken, we must conquer hostile environments here on Earth, hopefully learning applicable knowledge along the way. 

Among the harshest environments in the world is the Sahara desert.  With intense sunlight heating the sand to fiery temperatures and with little water, few animals and even fewer humans are able to live in this region.  However, the same resources that make the Sahara so inhospitable have benefits as well.

The European Union has already proposed massive Saharan solar installations and infrastructure, including a €45B supergrid, which could take advantage of the intense sunlight to power the entire EU.  Now a new organization, the Sahara Forest Project, is aiming to create a sustainable infrastructure for human life in the desert.  The project provides perhaps an ideal proving ground for technologies that could someday be applied to space colonization efforts.

The project, run by British scientists, aims to use a combination of high-tech greenhouses and solar power to create food, water, and power -- all the essentials for human colonization -- in the harshest regions of the Sahara.

The plan is to use concentrated solar power (CSP), a high yield type of solar power, to power seawater evaporators to obtain freshwater.  The installation also powers pumps which pipe cool, damp air into the greenhouses lowering the temperature up to 15 degrees Celsius.  This allows sun-loving plants such as lettuces, peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes.

Charlie Paton, a member of the team who invented the seawater greenhouse concept, describes, "Plants need light for growth but they don't like heat beyond a certain point.  So we've got conditions in the greenhouse of high humidity and lower temperature.  The crops sitting in this slightly steamy, humid condition can grow fantastically well."

The greenhouse would produce demineralized water, which could be used to keep the CSP panels in top working order.  The waste heat from the CSP could be recaptured to evaporate even more seawater.

The project already has two working demo plants in Tenerife, Oman and the United Arab Emirates.  It says that for £65m it can build 20 hectares of greenhouse and a 10 MW CSP installation to power it.  At these relatively low costs, many Middle Eastern countries are expressing interest in the self-sustaining system.

Many say similar gains could be attained using permaculture farming practices.  However, the Sahara Forest Project has the added perk that it provides an ideal model for space colonization efforts.

The installation also sinks a great deal of carbon, and additionally it helps restore the desert ecosystem, which has been damaged by over-access of the limited underground water resources.