Seeds in Space
The Brandizzi Lab at MSU is sending seeds to space aboard NASA’s Artemis I mission to explore how humanity can sustain itself outside of Earth.
After years of preparation, NASA’s Artemis I mission launched Nov. 16, a first step toward the agency’s future goal of establishing a “long-term human presence on the moon.”
Federica Brandizzi’s lab has selected seeds that are enriched with more amino acids and it’s sending those into space along with regular seeds. This experiment will allow the MSU team to see if fortifying the seeds on Earth could create a more sustainable path to growing healthier plants—and food—in space.
“This is really about understanding how we can establish and sustain life outside of this planet,” said Brandizzi, an MSU Foundation Professor in the College of Natural Science and the MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory. “We need to have plants that can survive long-term space travel forgenerations.”
