The Coral Plant is a stunning tropical shrub that can add a touch of exotic beauty to any garden or indoor space. It gets its name from its attractive coral-like appearance and unique foliage!
21.08.2023 - 11:41 / theunconventionalgardener.com / Emma Doughty
Header image: The German Neumayer III Station in Antarctica. Credits: NASA/Jess Bunchek
Ten polar explorers spent the Antarctic winter isolated at the German Neumayer III Station. The ‘overwintering’ process serves as an analog to conditions astronauts will face during long-duration space travel, such as a mission to Mars. A collaboration between NASA and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) ensured fresh produce was available to the crew all winter.
When plant scientist Jess Bunchek leaves Antarctica early next year to return to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, she will be bringing back knowledge to benefit space exploration – along with memories that will last a lifetime!
Bunchek spent the last year living and working with fellow researchers at the remote German Neumayer III Station, growing fresh fruits and vegetables in the German Aerospace Center’s (DLR) EDEN ISS greenhouse.
Bunchek’s research furthered DLR’s goal of validating the greenhouse for advancing agriculture technologies in controlled environments. Her work will also inform NASA’s efforts to feed astronauts in space.
“Extreme cold, raging storms, and polar night make the Antarctic one of the most fascinating habitats on our planet, and these qualities also make it an ideal test site for growing vegetables under space-like conditions.”
The EDEN ISS greenhouse is a standalone structure located about 400 metres south of the Neumayer station. Bunchek and her crewmates had to learn to work around unanticipated technical issues, storms and frigid temperatures.
There have been a few major storms over the past year; one had the highest winds ever recorded in the area. During the worst weather, Bunchek had to shelter in place at the station, unable to walk to the
The Coral Plant is a stunning tropical shrub that can add a touch of exotic beauty to any garden or indoor space. It gets its name from its attractive coral-like appearance and unique foliage!
Well, it’s the last day of National Gardening Week, and I hope you’ve been enjoying the vicarious harvests from my garden! I have enjoyed really focusing on what’s in season, and what we should be (and are!) harvesting and eating. It’s easy for me to forget that this garden is still very young, and it’s still maturing and I am still learning its quirks.
Header image: The greenhouse at McMurdo Station in Antarctica is the only source of fresh food during winter. Eli Duke/Flickr, CC BY-SA
When Virgin Galactic’s Unity 22 flew into space on Sunday, it carried one billionaire passenger and three tubes filled with plants.
This new short video from the University of Florida Space Plants Lab explains how and why they’re studying how plants react to being in microgravity.
Hello! Welcome to Gardeners Off World. This week we’ll start with a musical interlude, as violinist Lindsey Stirling recently performed her song, Artemis, on top of the Launch Control Center at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center:
The red planet. It may hold no life, but is it dead? [Image credit: NASA/JPL]
In Jade Pearls and Alien Eyeballs I take a look at some of the journeys familiar plants have made across the globe, and touch on their arrival in previously inhospitable places – underwater, Antarctica and even outer space. Since writing it I have become increasingly interested in the idea of plants in space, and have blogged about some of the current projects (lettuce on the ISS, and a ‘Mars’ greenhouse in Hawaii, you can scroll through the posts by selecting the space blog category). Researching the history of plants in space has proven to be quite a challenge. It’s not that there’s no information available, it’s that there’s a *lot*, and it’s a fascinating topic. Tracking down one piece of research inevitably brings up something new and shiny, and you’re off down a rabbit hole. It occurred to me that it’s a bit like a maze, and I thought we could treat it like a Choose Your Own Adventure story.
In the Hi-Seas habitat in Hawaii, analog astronauts take part in simulated space missions. Ben Greaves joins Emma the Space Gardener to talk about the isolation, the dehydrated diet, and his experiment growing microgreens in space-age hydrogel.
Just over a year ago, when we were celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first Moon landing, I talked about the lack of diversity in space and mentioned Mary Jackson. In 2016, the movie Hidden Figures shared the stories of Mary Jackson and two other Black female mathematicians – Katherine Johnson and, Dorothy Vaughan. They worked at NASA when a ‘computer’ still meant a person carrying out mathematical calculations. The film is based on a book by Margot Lee Shetterly, which I am reading at the moment. The book offers a more detailed and accurate account of the prejudice these women (and others) had to overcome.
Hello, and welcome to Gardeners Off World, your round-up of interplanetary news and views. NASA’s Christina Koch returned to Earth yesterday, after spending 328 days onboard the International Space Station (ISS) – the longest single spaceflight by a woman. Koch participated in three expeditions – 59, 60 and 61 – during her first spaceflight. ESA’s Luca Parmitano and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov came home on the same flight.
What did you get for Christmas? Hopefully something good, something seedy and something spacey!