Plants in space

[2] Plants can metabolize carbon dioxide in the air to produce valuable oxygen, and can help control cabin humidity.

[7] In 2017, aboard ISS in one plant growth device, the 5th crop of Chinese cabbage (Brassica rapa) from it included an allotment for crew consumption, while the rest was saved for study.

For instance, Allan H. Brown tested seedling movements aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1983.

They observed that the seedlings still experienced rotational growth and circumnutation despite lack of gravity, showing these behaviors are instinctual.

The Gravi-1 experiment (2008) utilized the EMCS to study lentil seedling growth and amyloplast movement on the calcium-dependent pathways.

Re-stocking from Earth, a lunar orbiting Space station or Mars habitation with food will be significantly more costly.

These early suborbital biological experiments were handled by Harvard University and the Naval Research Laboratory and were concerned with radiation exposure on living tissue.

Several of those seeds germinated, the first to do so, resulting in lettuce, cabbage and some beans that had greater yield than their controls on Earth.

[20] In 1971, 500 tree seeds (Loblolly pine, Sycamore, Sweetgum, Redwood, and Douglas fir) were flown around the Moon on Apollo 14.

[26] Plants tested in Veggie before going into space included lettuce, Swiss chard, radishes, Chinese cabbage and peas.

[27] Red Romaine lettuce was grown in space on Expedition 40 which were harvested when mature, frozen and tested back on Earth.

Expedition 44 members became the first American astronauts to eat plants grown in space on 10 August 2015, when their crop of Red Romaine was harvested.

[36] In December 2018, the German Aerospace Center launched the EuCROPIS satellite into low Earth orbit.

This mission carried two greenhouses intended to grow tomatoes under simulated gravity of first the Moon and then Mars (6 months each) using by-products of human presence in space as source of nutrients.

[42] The experiment included seeds of potatoes, tomatoes, and Arabidopsis thaliana (a flowering plant), as well as silkworm eggs.

[45] It was hoped that if the eggs hatched, the larvae would produce carbon dioxide, while the germinated plants would release oxygen through photosynthesis.

[49] Lunar soil has also been proven[verification needed] to allow plants to grow on, tested in a laboratory at the University of Florida.