Gardeners of the Galaxy

Emma the Space gardener jumps in the time machine to head back to 1997, when Ukrainians astronaut Leonid Kadenyuk conducted a variety of plant experiments on the Space Shuttle, with thousands of students following along on Earth. Sign up for the Gardeners of the Galaxy: Mission Report newsletter to get new episode alerts and bonus astrobotany content: https://emmadoughty.substack.com/.

It’s Gardeners of the Galaxy’s fifth birthday! To mark this milestone, I'm gazing into the future of astrobotany with my very own crystal ball. What plants will we be growing on the Moon? Who are the next generation of astrobotanists preparing for space? And which seeds are starting their cosmic journey? Plus, a couple of fellow space-gardening enthusiasts share their own predictions. Find the show notes for this episode, and much more about growing plants in space, at https://spacebotany.uk/.

Emma the Space gardener explores the concept of a Dyson Tree, an engineered plant that would grow out of an asteroid, creating a habitable environment for humans within. Sign up for the Gardeners of the Galaxy: Mission Report newsletter to get new episode alerts and bonus astrobotany content: https://emmadoughty.substack.com/.

Our Mission Specialist for this episode is Paul Sokoloff, a senior research assistant in botany at the Canadian Museum of Nature. Paul is very involved in cataloguing plant and lichen biodiversity in the Arctic and beyond. He’s also a sci-fi fan and an analog astronaut who has participated in multiple biological expeditions at the Mars Desert Research Station. Find the show notes for this episode, and much more about growing plants in space, at https://spacebotany.uk/.

Emma the Space Gardener is back with another episode with a non-human Mission Specialist, Google’s “virtual research assistant” NotebookLM. Together they're diving into the historic Blue Origin mission that took astrobotanist Rob Ferl into space. Sign up for the Gardeners of the Galaxy: MIssion Report newsletter to get new episode alerts and bonus astrobotany content: https://emmadoughty.substack.com/.

Happy new year and welcome to the first episode for 2025! For this episode, Emma the Space Gardener is experimenting with a non-human Mission Specialist, Google's "virtual research assistant" NotebookLM. Together, they're learning about China's recoverable Shijian-19 satellite, and the seeds it took into space. Sign up for the Gardeners of the Galaxy: MIssion Report newsletter to get new episode alerts and bonus astrobotany content: https://emmadoughty.substack.com/.

Throughout human history, when people have moved around the globe, they’ve taken their plants with them. They’ve carried with them the plants they relied on for food, for health, and for happiness. But when European colonisers began to transport plants from far flung locations, they ran into a problem - keeping plants alive during long sea voyages. In this episode, I tell the story of the man who solved it - Dr Nathaniel Ward, inventor of the Wardian case. Sign up for the Gardeners of the Galaxy: MIssion Report newsletter to get new episode alerts and bonus astrobotany content: https://emmadoughty.substack.com/.

Our Mission Specialist for this episode is Benz Kotzen, a Professor of Landscape Architecture and Nature Based Solutions at the University of Greenwich. He’s here to tell us about his FEEDING MARS project, which showcased a live experiment growing vegetables, herbs and fruits in Martian simulant soils, using fish effluents from an aquaponic system as fertilizer. Sign up for the Gardeners of the Galaxy: MIssion Report newsletter to get new episode alerts and bonus astrobotany content: https://emmadoughty.substack.com/.

It’s Gardeners of the Galaxy’s fourth birthday! To celebrate this auspicious event, I looked up what would be a suitable fourth anniversary gift. Traditionally, there are two that fit that bill – fruit and flowers. So Ryan and I have baked a lemon cake with strawberry frosting and sugar flower decorations, and I have picked two fun stories from the astrobotany archives to share with you. Want more Gardeners of the Galaxy, buy me a coffee to show that you care :)

Our Mission Specialist for this episode is the wonderful Borja Barbero Barcenilla, who is talking about what happens to plant telomeres in space. Borja and I had a brilliant chat about his breathtaking research, including an upcoming flight experiment, a special mutant Arabidopsis strain, and the sci-fi experience of putting your plants into a particle accelerator. And if you’ve ever wondered what plant a Spaniard would choose to take into space, well… you won’t want to miss it! Sign up for the Gardeners of the Galaxy: MIssion Report newsletter to get new episode alerts and bonus astrobotany content: https://emmadoughty.substack.com/.

Our Mission Specialist for this episode is Patrick Grubbs, who recently completed a Professional Science Master's degree in Controlled Environment Agriculture at the University of Arizona. Patrick is one of the people behind the Space Ecology Workshop, an annual virtual symposium on bioregenerative life support, space agriculture, closed ecological systems, and more. He also co-founded The Spring Institute for Forests on the Moon, an international non-profit research organization developing closed ecological life support technology and working to democratize space access in underrepresented countries. The Spring Institute is working on some really exciting astrobotany projects, and Patrick is here to tell us about... some of them! Sign up for the Gardeners of the Galaxy: MIssion Report newsletter to get new episode alerts and bonus astrobotany content: https://emmadoughty.substack.com/.

In this episode, Emma the Space Gardener talks with Marshall Porterfield, Professor of Biological Engineering & Space Biophysics at Purdue University, who offers up some highlights from his long career in space science. Sign up for the Gardeners of the Galaxy: MIssion Report newsletter to get new episode alerts and bonus astrobotany content: https://emmadoughty.substack.com/.

In the summer of 1863, a world-famous English botanist was pondering why the shoots of climbing plants twirl around as they grow. In this episode, join Emma the Space Gardener as she explores the fascinating world of plant movement, and what that has to do with the first plants that ever flew on NASA's space shuttle. Sign up for the Gardeners of the Galaxy: MIssion Report newsletter to get new episode alerts and bonus astrobotany content: https://emmadoughty.substack.com/.

Gardeners of the Galaxy is three years old! To celebrate, Emma the Space Gardener has been delving into the archives, digging deeper into three related astrobotany stories from days gone by, which all have something to do with trees. Sign up for the Gardeners of the Galaxy: MIssion Report newsletter to get new episode alerts and bonus astrobotany content: https://emmadoughty.substack.com/.

It's time for another exciting episode, and in this one Emma the Space Gardener talks with Dr Emily Sessa, the director of the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium at the New York Botanical Garden. Now Emily's job might just be one of the coolest in the Universe, but she has also recently been working on some NASA-funded research that could tell us a lot about the history of life on planet Earth, but also give us some hints about how to live well on other planets. Sign up for the Gardeners of the Galaxy: MIssion Report newsletter to get new episode alerts and bonus astrobotany content: https://emmadoughty.substack.com/.

As 2023 is the International Year of Millets, Emma the Space Gardener explores just exactly what millets are, whether we'll ever see them growing in space, and why the International Atomic Energy Authority and the FAO just sent millet seeds into space. Sign up for the Gardeners of the Galaxy: MIssion Report newsletter to get new episode alerts and bonus astrobotany content: https://emmadoughty.substack.com/.

In this episode, Emma the Space Gardener talks with Dr Jenny Mortimer from the University of Adelaide, one of the scientists involved with the new Plants for Space (P4S) project. Jenny currently has a bit of an obsession with duckweed, a plant with superpowers that could be right at home in space! Sign up for the Gardeners of the Galaxy: MIssion Report newsletter to get new episode alerts and bonus astrobotany content: https://emmadoughty.substack.com/.

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. Sign up for the Gardeners of the Galaxy: MIssion Report newsletter to get new episode alerts and bonus astrobotany content: https://emmadoughty.substack.com/.

In this teaser episodes, join Emma the Space Gardener for a trip into the astrobotany archives. In 2006, researchers published their work attempting to grow marigolds on simulated lunar regolith. But there's more to it than that.... Sign up for the Gardeners of the Galaxy: MIssion Report newsletter to get new episode alerts and bonus astrobotany content: https://emmadoughty.substack.com/.

The last episode of 2022 is here, and it's a good one! Emma the Space Gardener has been talking with Amy Padolf and Carl Lewis from the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden about their citizen science/education project Growing Beyond Earth® (GBE). GBE is really something special, because it allows school students to collect data that influences which plants NASA grows in space. Sign up for the Gardeners of the Galaxy: MIssion Report newsletter to get new episode alerts and bonus astrobotany content: https://emmadoughty.substack.com/.