The First Seeds in Space

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. 

On September 19 1783, Joseph and Étienne Montgolfier carried out a hot air balloon demonstration in front of French king Louis XVI and the royal family at the Court of Versailles. The basket below the balloon held a sheep, duck and a cockerel, making it the first passenger flight in history as well as the first aeronautical scientific experiment with animal subjects. After ascending to 600 metres, the fabric of the balloon ripped. It descended slowly, landing 3.5 km away. When it transpired that the cockerel had a damaged wing, the first air accident investigation began. It concluded that the cockerel had not suffered due to the flight, but had been kicked by the sheep.

We have to wait more than 150 years for the first recorded experiments sending seeds aloft.

During the Second World War, Wernher von Braun developed rocket technology for the Nazis. His work culminated in the V-2, the world’s first long-range guided ballistic missile. From September 1944, German forces launched 3,000 V-2s against London, Antwerp and Liège. 

As the war drew to a close, the Allies rushed to capture German technology and manufacturing sites. Wernher von Braun surrendered to the Americans with more than 100 key V-2 personnel. The US also collected enough hardware to build around 80 V-2 missiles. The Soviets took over the V-2 manufacturing facilities and moved production to the Soviet Union.

In 1946, the United States Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) was collaborating with scientists from Harvard University to send biological specimens into the upper