Glenlivet hopes space barley will make out-of-this-world whisky

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

Join Emma the Space Gardener as she explores gardening on Earth… and beyond! In this episode, Emma recaps the latest space plant news and then talks about some of the seeds with space stories.

While we’re waiting for Tim Peake to blast off to the International Space Station (ISS) to begin his Principia mission, I thought it might be fun to have a look at the first Briton in space – Helen Sharman, who was also the first woman to visit the Mir space station, in 1991.

One of the nerdy things I enjoy doing in my spare time is researching the first seeds to have made it into space. This is what I have found so far:

From the moment humans started to reach for the skies, we have used other species from Earth to test what’s safe and what happens to life away from its natural habitat on the planet’s surface. 

Join Emma the Space Gardener as she explores gardening on Earth… and beyond! In this episode, Emma recaps important spacecraft Arrivals and Departures and learns about growing nutrients and medicines in space. There’s a new plant experiment running on the International Space Station, and exciting news from ESA.

Header image: NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio uses a video camera to photograph the Ant Forage Habitat. Image credit: NASA

Fifty years ago today, at 13:32 UTC, Apollo 11 launched on its mission to drop off the first humans to set foot on the Moon. It’s something that hasn’t been achieved again since the Apollo program ended, although interest in going back to the Moon has been rekindled somewhat of late. While we remember it as one of the crowning moments of the 20th century, it’s worth noting that the Apollo program wasn’t without its critics. In an interview in 1961, Norbert Wiener, a professor and legendary mathematician at MIT, dismissed the Apollo program as a “moondoggle”!

I imagine the Apollo 11 astronauts had plenty to do while they were hurtling towards the Moon, but from a bystander’s perspective it was probably pretty dull stuff. Still, it’s Day 3 of the mission, so let’s have a look at what they’ve got stashed away in their space age picnic basket.

At the beginning of the year, I set up a new mission in the AeroGarden, growing two peppers (Popti and Redskin) and a tomato (Veranda Red). Ten days later, I had two tomato seedlings, which I had to thin to one. The peppers were a bit slower, but by 19th January they had germinated (and been thinned) too.

Last weekend, as the temperatures soared, I found a certain amount of solace in learning more about how plants are being grown in Antarctica – the coldest place on Earth. 

Back in 2014, I bought some seeds that had been into space. They are cinnamon basil (Ocimum basilicum Cinnamon), still sealed into their space packet.