Plants for Space

How can plants be optimised for astronauts in a lab or martian environment?

An exciting and rapidly emerging area for biology is life in Space. By 2040 people will be living on Mars- scientifically, this is the near horizon and well within the lifetime of our students and early career scientists. My group has joined an ambitious international collaboration led by Australian scientists to design and make plants for space habitation.

Plants are the most efficient systems to provide sustainable food and other chemical materials using energy from the sun.  Plants for space must be highly water and space efficient, be able to use recycled waste, and be 100% harvestable for products. They must also provide the psychological benefits known to us on Earth. We are pushing the boundaries of plant diversity and biotechnology to create plants for space.