When we leave the confines of Earth’s orbit, plants will accompany us on the journey. Plants have always been a part of the human exploration story, and whether viewed on the scale of across a continent, an ocean, or a planet, plants allow us to push past the limits of the cargo we bring along. Plants form the foundation of the biological life support systems envisioned for extraterrestrial discovery. Our research tells a story about how humans decided to take their explorations off their home world, and the role of plants (and of space plant scientists) in preparing the way.

Robert Ferl T6Rob is a Distinguished Professor and Director of the Astraeus Space Institute at the University of Florida. He has spent his career studying how organisms respond to extreme conditions, especially spaceflight. He and his colleagues were the first to prove that plants could grow in lunar soil collected during Apollo. Ferl recently chaired the NASEM committee on space biology research over the next decade. Rob has worked in the Arctic and Antarctica and has been to space to space as a NASA-funded academic researcher to conduct an experiment on Blue Origin New Shepard.