Interconnectedness of Circular Economy, Artificial Intelligence and Vertical Farming as a Technosignature Model for Sustainable Space Food Production

The degradation of Earth's natural resources and environmental health due to improper anthropological activities, mainly through unoptimized food production, is manifested through climate change that negatively alters the productivity in the agricultural sector. Because of this challenge in open terrestrial agriculture, the concept of space farming is believed to be significant in delivering fresh and quality food for the people on top of providing for astronauts and making them healthy in space. However, another problem emerges in the view of circular economy (CE) which is a production and consumption idealism that avoids degradation of natural resources and environment in producing one food unit and despite the collaborative advances in space technology, particularly in astrobotany, the materialization of CE and the absolutism of artificial intelligence (AI) are still partly imaginary. This study employed a bibliometric, scientometric and systematic analysis to highlight the advantages, limitations, and connections of CE, AI, and vertical farming (VF) which led to establishing a technosignature model for sustainable space food production. Here, CE, AI and VF were singularized as a model for sustainable space food production and identified their potential interplay. Based on scientific correlations, it is undoubtedly true that CE, AI, and VF have existing mutualism in Earth-based systems, but the degree of its importance as a whole is not yet completely appreciated for space farming. The developed CE-AI-VF technosignature model is scalable and adaptable if the government and scientific community put it into action accompanied by science policies.