It’s Valentine’s Day on Earth, and love is definitely in the recycled air in the Orbital Garden! Join Emma the Space Gardener as she explores the history of roses in space, and an art project that imagines a future for roses on Mars.
00:41 Would a rose in space still smell as sweet?
04:16 A special rose that went over the rainbow in the space shuttle.
06:44 An art project that sent a rose to Mars. (Take a look at the photos on the c-lab website.)
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GotG51: Roses in Space
Hello, and welcome to another thrilling episode of Gardeners of the Galaxy, the podcast for all of the sentient beings in the Universe who have a passion for plants. I’m Emma the Space Gardener, and I will be your host as we explore gardening on Earth… and beyond!
It’s Valentine’s Day on Earth, so love is definitely in the recycled air here in the Orbital Garden. And although we can’t just nip to the shop and buy a dozen roses for our someone special, we’re comforted to know that roses have been grown in space.
Would a rose in space still smell as sweet? That was the question International Flavors and Fragrances Inc (IFF) set out to answer in October 1998.
Researchers at the Wisconsin Center for Space Automation and Robotics (which goes by the unwieldy acronym of WCSAR) had developed a commercial plant research facility called ASTROCULTURETM to provide plants with the necessary temperature, humidity, light, and nutrients during spaceflight. ASTROCULTURE was designed to sit in the middeck of the space shuttle, which was where the crew lived and worked.
IFF partnered with the Wisconsin researchers to modify the ASTROCULTURE (TM) unit, incorporating their
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