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with the arrival of the dragon

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spacecraft that's now birthed to iss

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there's obviously plenty of new

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experiments to unload there's a new

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plant in investigation that is among all

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of the payloads

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launched and birthed to the station

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called seedling growth ii it's a

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collaboration between nasa ames research

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center and the european space agency the

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principal investigator john kiss is the

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dean of the graduate school at the

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university of mississippi in oxford lori

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meigs my colleague at the marshall space

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flight center had a chance to speak with

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him recently at the kennedy space center

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before launch about the experiment

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so ceiling growth is an experiment that

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is in collaboration with the european

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space agency and we're interested in the

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growth and development of plants in

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space

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we're particularly interested in the

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role of gravity and light in plant

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growth and development we actually have

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three three different runs

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and um the runs are

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about six or seven days each

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so so the ceilings are about six days

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old when we do the experiments there's

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been research over the years right what

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makes yours different and what do you

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hope to learn

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well one of the things that makes our

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project different is we're actually in

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addition to microgravity we're looking

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at reduced gravity levels

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we're using a facility called the

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european modular cultivation system

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we have the ability to do the experiment

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in microgravity but also use a

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centrifuge to give it varying amounts of

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gravity so we actually could do the moon

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mars level of gravity and while there's

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a lot as you said known about plants

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grown

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in space and microgravity there's very

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little known about plant growth and

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development in reduced gravity

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environments

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what does it look like

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we're looking at tiny seedlings they're

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about

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an inch and a half of the plant

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arabidopsis thaliana it's called a

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mousier crest

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and we're sending up seeds and the seeds

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will be watered and they'll develop in

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the microgravity environment

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does the crew water them or how does

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that or is it it's a semi-automatic

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system the crew is involved in loading

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the containers

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into the european modular cultivation

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system and they're involved after the

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seedlings develop and we're done with

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the experiment we freeze the seedlings

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in the minus 80 freezer so they're

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involved in that process

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so you freeze and then return to earth

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yes they'll be returned on a future

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spacex mission

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what is your interest in having

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an experiment like this on the space

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station

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well this is first of all this is a

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series we had a seedling growth one this

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is seedling growth two

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i think that microgravity is a very

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unique environment in which to study

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very important basic problems in biology

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and plant biology and it gives us a

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really unique opportunity to study

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plants in microgravity and as i said

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with the emcs we also could study them

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in these reduced or fractional gravity

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environments that are like moon mars

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i'm the american pi there's a european

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pi um javier medina from madrid

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and

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we're sending up different types

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different strains and types of seeds and

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some of the types are the ones i'm

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interested in and there are some other

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ones that uh that he's interested in so

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we're going to be adding the european

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dimension to this flight

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what have we learned from the first one

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well we're still in the process of

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analyzing the data but what i could tell

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you from the

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preliminary data it actually looks like

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the

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gravity levels

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on the mar on mars are probably going to

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be adequate in terms of gravity for

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plant growth which was a really

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surprising finding the gravity level on

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on mars is 3 8

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g compared to

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the earth gravity levels

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so um it seems like

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in our reduced gravity studies using the

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centrifuge that

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that gravity level will be adequate for

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plant development do they grow like

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normal seeds

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actually on at the what was remarkable

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is at the mars level of gravity they do

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grow

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pretty much like like the earth nominal

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or earth normal plants that was kind of

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a surprising finding and we're following

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up on that in the seedling growth too

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so we're doing basic science but i think

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the kinds of things that we're going to

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be learning from this project are going

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to be in the long term very applicable

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to growing plants on earth because the

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parameters of particularly light

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is a very important parameter obviously

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for plant growth and i think we'll be

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able to

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get some unique insights which will help

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us probably in the long term develop