[The role of vitamin-supplying greenhouse in the improvement of the functional performance of the Mars research crew].

The paper deals with the problem of providing space crews with adequate diets in extended space flights (lasted for 2 yrs and longer). On the basis of analytic review of the literature data, the questions related to quality of frozen and canned diets after their long-term preservation and first of all the problem of safety of C and A group vitamins in these diets are discussed. There exists two opposing tendencies which counteract each other in providing the space crews with diets: an increased, as compared to adopted norms of consuming the vitamins by cosmonauts in the extreme spaceflight environments, on the one hand, and an expected inevitable decrease in the amount of some vitamins and the quality of some foods during their long-term preservation aboard spacecraft, on the other hand. It is concluded that the most probable solution of the problem under study would be the development of onboard greenhouse to supply the space crew in extended space flights with the required vitamins and other fresh food substances. It is proposed that using of space greenhouse as a part of food regeneration system must contribute to an increased stability and reliability of functioning of the major object of spacecraft, namely, the space crew.