The Mitchell Lab is the lead group for the crop focus area of the NASA Specialized Center of Research and Training in Advanced Life Support (ALS NSCORT). Our work focuses on minimizing energy requirements and equivalent system mass (ESM) for crop growth in an Advanced Life-Support System. In addition, we are working on optimizing cultivation practices for ALS crops and selecting cultivars of some of the target crops. Finally our work carries over into the area of controlled environment agriculture (CEA) research, and we have embarked on collaborative research to develop better, safer ways to produce pharma crops.