Space Ideas, Tips & Guides

In 1971, NASA astronaut Stuart Roosa, a former US Department of Agriculture Forest Services smoke jumper, carried tree seeds into lunar orbit during the Apollo 14 mission. The The US Department of Agriculture Forest Services grew those seeds into seedlings, and the distributed the resulting ‘Moon Trees’ to national monuments and dignitaries around the world, with a large number distributed as part of the United States Bicentennial events.  

Header image: Lettuce in a grow room. Image credit: University of Western Australia (UWA).

Gardeners of the Galaxy friend Wieger Wamelink and his research team at Wageningen University & Research and the B.A.S.E. project investigate how we can create a circular and sustainable agricultural ecosystem for food production… on the Moon or Mars.

Hello, Gardeners of the Galaxy! It’s time for a new episode, and our Mission Specialist for this one is Patrick Grubbs, who recently completed a Professional Science Master’s degree in Controlled Environment Agriculture at the University of Arizona. Patrick is one of the people behind the Space Ecology Workshop, an annual virtual symposium on bioregenerative life support, space agriculture, closed ecological systems, and more. He also co-founded The Spring Institute for Forests on the Moon, an international non-profit research organization developing closed ecological life support technology and working to democratize space access in underrepresented countries. The Spring Institute is working on some really exciting astrobotany projects, and Patrick is here to tell us about… some of them!

Simonetta Di Pippo, Bocconi University

Jessica Atkins of Texas A&M University and Sara Oliveira Santos at Brown University have published preliminary results suggesting that commonly used gardening techniques could help grow chickpeas on the Moon.

Header image by Md Asif from Pixabay

In this episode, Emma the Space Gardener talks with Marshall Porterfield, Professor of Biological Engineering & Space Biophysics at Purdue University, who offers up some highlights from his long career in space science. During a stint as Division Director for Space Life and Physical Sciences at NASA headquarters in Washington DC. Marshall oversaw the Human Research, Physical Sciences, and Space Biology Programs including research and engineering assets at six NASA centres. He established the first open science, and advanced integrated omics research programs including NASA GeneLab and the NASA Twins Study.

Header image: An illustration of a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft approaching the International Space Station for docking. Image credit: NASA

Alice Gorman, Flinders University

Header image: Space broccoli. Image credit: NASA/Don Pettit

A light-hearted weekend art project: making some of the pink fir apple potatoes I grew this year look like asteroids!

Did you know that the Gardeners of the Galaxy podcast has a Patreon? It’s one of the main ways that my rocket boosters can support the show financially, and give me more time to work on it.

Agro-tech manufacturer GreenOnyx has announced its flagship product, Wanna Greens®, the natural fresh Wolffia vegetables that surpass any traditional greens, made history as the first duckweed plant to rocket into space* on SpaceX to the International Space Station (ISS).

Header image: Nicotiana benthamiana seedlings growing in simulated lunar soil in a laboratory at the China Agricultural University in Beijing. Image credit: Yitong Xia via REUTERS. 

According to the China Global Television Network, the vegetable cultivation experiment carried out by Chinese astronauts during the Shenzhou-16 mission to the Tiangong space station has yielded a good harvest, verifying the reliability of its plant growth technology in space.

In the summer of 1863, a world-famous English botanist was pondering why the shoots of climbing plants twirl around as they grow. In this episode, join Emma the Space Gardener as she explores the fascinating world of plant movement, and what that has to do with the first plants that ever flew on NASA’s space shuttle.

Header image: An artist concept depicts a greenhouse on the surface of Mars. Plants are growing with the help of red, blue and green LED light bars and a hydroponic cultivation approach. Image credit: SAIC

The current crew (Shenzhou-16) on China’s Tiangong space station are growing a crop of lettuce. This video shows them watering the crop (from the bottom).

On 8 September 2023, Virgin Galactic’s ‘Galactic 03’ mission flew three tourists to the edge of space. The news that one of them  (Tim Nash) carried a pocketful of priceless hominin bones has caused a backlash from the scientific community, due to their being both irreplaceable artefacts and human ancestral remains.

Header image: The Expose-R2 facility outside the International Space Station. Image credit: Roscosmos.

China Central Television has produced a short video showing the plant experiments growing on the Tiangong space station. The Shenzhou-16 crew has been in orbit for almost three months, and says their space vegetable garden has given a good lettuce harvest.

It’s Sunday morning, and Ryan is still asleep, and I got a bit bored and started playing around with one of those “blog title generators”. (For those of you for whom this is a new concept, they generate click-bait style headlines for a topic you give them.)

I received an interesting press release on Monday, about grass growing in space. The grass seed used in the experiment was Gro-Sure, and they’re trumpeting that the success of the experiment confirms their ‘Grow With Certainty’ promise.

How does a kitchen gardener choose what to grow? It’s about balancing quite a complex set of variables, which include the space and time available, the local climate and soil, the gardener’s skill level and what they like to eat. That last one is, itself, quite a complicated topic as culture plays a significant role. There are many thousands of edible plants on the planet; most people only eat a small number and grow fewer still.

Get ready for launch, it’s time for the latest edition of Gardeners off World!

Header image: Mizuna lettuce growing aboard the International Space Station before being harvested and frozen for return to Earth. Image credit: NASA 

Two researchers from the University of Central Florida – Kevin Cannon and Daniel Britt – have been looking at how a Martian colony might feed itself. Although NASA has been growing some food on the International Space Station, its goal is to supplement the vitamins and minerals in a standard astronaut diet and to improve crew morale – it’s not about making a space station, or a colony, self-sufficient.

This is a really fun video (12:24 long) from Adam Savage’s Tested series, in which a chef tries to help astronauts on the ISS eat nicer meals by combining foods they already have in stock. Chris Hadfield is their astronaut guinea pig, and demonstrates very effectively why it’s so hard to prepare meals in space!

Today marks the 45th anniversary of the Apollo Moon landing, which seems like a good time to take the next step on our space adventure. You choose the topic of bees in space, so here we go!

Header image: Tokyo Bekana Chinese cabbage leaves prior to harvest aboard the International Space Station. Photo credit: NASA

Astronaut Steven Swanson tending to the Veggie garden on the International Space Station. Image credit: NASA

Today is the first day of National Plants at Work Week, which aims to promote the use and benefits of indoor plants. You may have been eyeing up the windowsills in your office with a view to growing your own chillies or sweet peppers, but did you know that you can grow your own fresh air too?

Move over, Mark Watney, there’s a new space botanist heading for Mars! Ryan and I have just finished watching the new Netflix series Away, which follows (over 10 episodes) the quest of five international astronauts to be the first people to set foot on the red planet.

Header image: The greenhouse at McMurdo Station in Antarctica is the only source of fresh food during winter. Eli Duke/Flickr, CC BY-SA

At times, usually when I supposed to be doing something else because I’m a grad student and procrastination of some form seems to be part of the gig, I find myself planning what plants I would include in an imaginary biodome on a inhospitable planet many astronomical units away. Imaginary biodomes are one of my favourite thought exercises – to me it is the perfect fusion of my love of space exploration and my attempts to grow as much as my own food as I can in my small backyard.