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.
21.08.2023 - 11:45 / theunconventionalgardener.com / Emma Doughty
It’s common to hear Americans talk about their exciting experiences at Space Camp. It’s not often that students in the UK get to work with astronauts on a space experiment, but that’s exactly what’s on offer next summer at Mission Discovery – King’s College London 2023.
Mission Discovery is a residential educational program for students from anywhere in the world to spend a week working together in teams. Under the guidance of NASA astronauts, NASA personnel, rocket scientists and world-renowned professors, participants design an experiment that could benefit the human race, whether it is on Earth, the Space Station, the Moon, Mars or beyond.
The best experiment is built at NASA and launched to the International Space Station (ISS) to be conducted by the astronauts on board. Since launching in 2011, Mission Discovery has worked with 17 NASA astronauts, held programmes in 4 continents for over 16,000 students. They’ve sent 42 experiments into space on 9 different rockets, with more experiments in the pipeline to be launched later this year.
Mission Discovery – King’s College London 2023 will take place from 10th – 14th July 2023, with NASA astronaut Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger. Click though to find out more and book your place today! If you act quickly, you can save 20% with the discount code SPOOKY20.
Unless otherwise stated, © Copyright Emma Doughty 2023. Published on theunconventionalgardener.com.
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.
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.
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.
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.
At 11 pm on Friday (BST, 18:01 EDT), SpaceX launched an uncrewed Dragon cargo spacecraft on its way to the International Space Station (ISS). This Dragon capsule has been to the ISS twice before, making it the first to fly in space for a third time. This is the 18th SpaceX Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract mission for NASA: CRS-18.
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.
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.
In Once Upon a Time I Lived on Mars, Kate Greene talks about Shannon Lucid, the NASA astronaut who spent six months living on the Russian space station Mir. Shannon, it turns out, was a bookworm. During her stay, she read 50 books and improvised shelving from old food boxes, complete with straps to stop the books floating off. This was in 1996, a good decade before the invention of the Kindle, and so these were real books. She apparently chose titles with the highest word to mass ratio, since launch weight is a critical factor! Lucid left her library behind for future spacefarers, but it burned up when Mir was de-orbited in 2001.
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.