Gardeners of the Galaxy

If you've ever carried out a research project, you know how hard it can be to find the relevant scientific papers. The SALAD (Space Agriculture Laboratory Analysis Database project aims to make astrobotany research widely accessible. By linking research papers according to their plants, spacecraft missions, and other details, SALAD compiles astrobotany research in one central location. In this episode, Emma the Space Gardener talks with Sam Humphrey and Luke Concollato about the SALAD project. 
 
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Watering plants in space is a bit tricky, and something NASA is still working on.
In this episode, Emma the Space Gardener explores one of the designs they've been perfecting. The Passive Orbital Nutrient Delivery System (PONDS) is a Tupperware-based upgrade to the Veggie growing system. 
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An extraordinary apple tree in a garden in Lincolnshire is 400 years old. It inspired Sir Isaac Newton to think about gravity, and in 2015 British astronaut Tim Peake took its pips into space. In this episode, Emma the Space Gardener talks with Jeremy Curtis, Head of Education and Skills at the UK Space Agency, about sending Newton's apple seeds into space. She finds out what's happened to the space saplings and has a close encounter in Cornwall.
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Getting a plant payload into space is rarely straightforward. In this episode, Emma the Space Gardener chats with Dr Carl Carruthers, who started out sending his own research projects into space and then became Chief Scientist at Nanoracks. There he worked on projects to send palm tree seeds to the International Space Station for the UAE, and to design a kit to turn school kids into space farmers. 
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We all know that spaceflight is tricky, and after 18 months of hearing about some amazing astrobotany successes, in this episode, Emma the Space Gardener looks into some space plant experiments that didn't quite go according to plan. An astrobotanical blooper reel, if you like. 
 
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In this episode, Emma the Space Gardener talks to Vertical Veg Man Mark Ridsdill Smith, an expert on small space gardening on Earth. Small space gardening shares many of the same constraints facing space gardeners, although harvesting runner beans up a ladder isn't one of them!
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Join Emma the Space Gardener as she talks to Dr Wieger Wamelink about how he became a space farmer, his experiments growing plants on Moon and Mars soil simulants, the importance of developing off-world ecosystems, and whether we can bring pet chickens to Mars!
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In episode 35, Emma the Space Gardener explores why bioregenerative life support systems are things we only see in the movies, and how far NASA has come in its quest to build a space salad machine.
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