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

episode 312, Plant Water Management. I'm Gary Jordan. 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 and more.

We know that plants can grow in space.

This is a very important capability to understand, particularly for missions into deep space,

to have the capability to supplement prepackaged meals with some fresh nutrients.

Now that we understand that we can grow plants, scientists are looking

into ways to make that growth more efficient. One thing we've discovered by

growing plants in space is that roots grow differently.

Not the typical up as the sky and down as the soil in space.

The roots of plants in particular can grow in odd ways.

So one thing scientists are looking at is ensuring that those roots receive adequate hydration

and aeration from germination through harvest.

Scientists are investigating a hydroponic method that may help plants grow better in space aboard the International Space

Station. It's an interesting solution and funny enough does not use real

plants as part of the experiment design. Aboard the SpaceX CRS-29 cargo resupply mission to the station is the fifth and sixth

installments of this experiment.

To help describe what it's all about is the experiment's principal investigator who has been with the project since its start in 2019

Mark Weiss Logel, PhD, chatting with us from IRPI LLC as a principal scientist in Oregon. All right, let's get started. C-mineus tisk, the county.

Mission start.

Fuzzer one wants to be that light circuit for the right.

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