NASA has selected 12 new investigations focused on advancing the ability to grow food in space and understanding the health impacts of space travel on astronauts. Six investigations, supported by the agency’s Space Crops grants, will advance NASA’s goal of harnessing plants to enhance quality of life for humans in space and enable lunar and Mars exploration.
Four of the space crops proposals will study edible plants and how their growth, physiology, and associated microbial communities are affected by environmental conditions in space or on other planetary bodies. One proposal, led by Jannell Bazurto of the University of Minnesota, is titled “Cultivating the Cosmos: Investigating Plant-Microbe Dynamics for Sustainable Space Farming.” Another, from Miranda Haus at Michigan State University, focuses on “Investigating Legume Crop Rotations and Microbial Interactions in Regolith Simulants.” Andrew Settles at NASA Ames Research Center will lead research on “Genetic Mitigation of Spaceflight Stressors on Production of Chlamydomonas,” while Christopher Taylor of Ohio State University will study “Hydroponic Microbes in a Low Carbon, High-Radiation Environment; Identifying the Genetic Determinants of Water- and Plant-Associated Microbial Survival in Extraterrestrial Environments.” The final Space Crops proposal will build on previous International Space Station studies to uncover functions of algal genes and how their expression is modified by spaceflight.
The remaining six proposals fall under the agency’s Biological and Physical Sciences Division’s focus on precision health, seeking to unravel the mechanisms by which space exploration affects health and well-being. Research will identify ways to mitigate health issues and develop early-warning detection systems for crew members. One proposal will study how lunar dust exposure impacts respiratory, immune, and inflammation responses. Another will identify repurposed drugs that can mitigate the effects of space travel on health and physiology. Two proposals will examine how radiation combined with other stressors affects age-relevant characteristics in various organ and physiological systems, while the final two will assess molecular and cellular changes induced by stressors in space that can alter gene expression or protein function. Nine of the awards are for investigators receiving funding from the Space Biology Program for the first time, and the research is being conducted by teams from 10 institutions across eight states.
Read the original coverage
💬 Comments
📜 Comment Policy