Houston, we have a podcast. Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space

Center episode 258 Moon Farming. I'm Gary Jordan, and I'll be your host today.

On this podcast, we bring in the experts, scientists, engineers, and astronauts, all

to let you know what's going on in the world of human spaceflight.

As we plan to head farther into space than any human has ever gone before, one of the

key questions is, how will we ensure humans survive? And a component of this question

is, what are we going to eat? If you've seen the movie The Martian, you probably

have somewhat of an idea of just how important plants are for the survival of humans on

Mars. The extent to which plants can be a key aspect to an astronaut's diet on a deep

space mission depends heavily on the success of growing and sustaining plants in space.

Before we jump straight ahead to the red planet, scientists took a closer look at the lunar

surface, and recently using moon soil collected during the Apollo missions successfully

grew plants. On this episode, we have two special guests joining us to talk about their recent

groundbreaking discovery. First, we have Dr. Rob Ferrell from the University of Florida

currently serves as assistant vice president for research and as a distinguished professor.

He served as a University of Florida faculty member for over 40 years and has received numerous

awards for his research, including the NASA Exceptional Public Service Medal for his contributions

to the space community that he received this year. Joining the podcast for a second time,

we have Dr. Annalisa Paul, who is the director of the Interdisciplinary Center for Biotechnology

Research at the University of Florida, and a research professor in the Department of

Horticultural Sciences there, where she studies the responses of plants to novel environments

with a focus on the environments and its impacts on space exploration. She's performed

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