Seeds from Space Investigation
The school’s astronaut training club have been investigating the germination and growth of rocket seeds as part of a project organised by the UK Space Agency and the Royal Horticultural Society. One set of seeds had been on the International Space Station ISS for six months and the other stayed down on Earth. We investigated factors such as when germination occurred, when leaves appeared, height of plants, numbers of leaves and how many plants survived from the two samples. We couldn’t determine any obvious differences between our two samples but we thought the colour of one set of rocket plants was slightly different overall to the other. Our investigation has now finished and our results will be sent to the UK Space Agency to be analysed with all the other results from around the country. We will be informed in the near future which of the two samples of seeds had been on the ISS and what, if any, effect this has had on their growth.
Dr Ketchion says that the astronaut trainees have been very keen and conducted their investigation in a proper scientific manner. Hopefully human kind will benefit from their results when astronauts can grow their own food on future space missions.
