Orchids in Spaaace

Radishes growing on the International Space Station (photo credit: NASA)

Space flight programs in the US and elsewhere have experimented with growing plants in space since the 1960s. Scientists have conducted numerous tests about the effect of microgravity on vegetation with an eye toward longer-haul space missions. If humans are going to live in colonies on the moon, Mars, or elsewhere, they’ll need to grow plants for food, oxygen and carbon dioxide cycling, water management, and more. Plants also, as study after study has shown, provide many psychological benefits, which is particularly important for space-dwelling astronauts who are millions of miles away from their families and from Earth itself. Given the practical need for vegetables and other edible crops, I was surprised to learn that orchids have travelled to the cosmos more than once. 

In 1977, the USSR’s Salyut 6 space station (a predecessor of Mir and the ISS) became the first place astronauts conducted an experiment to evaluate the influence of plants on the moods of the astronauts. Because this experiment wasn’t designed for food or other logistics, researchers chose the plant they thought might especially appeal to the cosmonauts’ psyches: orchids.

Zinnia flower onboard the ISS (photo credit: NASA)

The 1977 experiment involved bringing four planter boxes containing mature orchids, as well as seeds for later experiments. The planter boxes had a water supply and lighting, but still, the adult orchids died not long after they arrived in space. Somewhat surprisingly, the orchid seeds sprouted, grew, and eventually flowered. These blooms, however, did not produce their own seeds before they wilted. It’s not totally clear why the mature orchids died or why the later generation didn’t make seeds. Any single (or multiple) environmental factors could be the cause, which means we don’t know for sure whether microgravity had any influence over the outcome. However, after the second generation of orchids returned to earth in 1980, they recovered.

One of those orchids was kept at the botanical garden of the Academy of Sciences in Kiev, Ukraine. For years, scientists continued using it for studies, particularly in genetics. 

Photo credit: Bamsey via Science Direct

But that’s not where the story ends. 

Eight years later, an aspiring biologist who worked as a groundskeeper at the gardens stole the orchid, which had been nicknamed “Cosmonaut.” The guy apparently planned to sell it on the black market. Sadly, the orchid didn’t survive the theft. Now you know why we can’t have nice things.

Cosmonaut wasn’t the last orchid to head to space, however. Since 2016, China’s Fujian Forestry Science and Technology Experimental Center has collaborated with Yunnan Province’s Academy of Agricultural Sciences to conduct research on growing orchids in space. Experiments have been conducted on the Tiangong-2 spacecraft, the Long March 5B rocket, and the Shenzhou carrier. These experiments have resulted in two sterile strains.

Night-scented orchid (photo credit: Bernard DuPont via Wikimedia)

The most recent space orchid experiment took place this year using rare, native orchids from Florida. Scientists hope that the results will help them figure out how to make endangered orchids more resilient in the face of climate change, habitat loss, and more.

Scientists have been breeding plants, including orchids, in space for decades because of widespread implications and applications for agriculture. The conditions of space, including cosmic radiation and microgravity, affect the way plants grow and create a larger chance of genetic mutation, which could result in blooms that are bigger, more colorful, more fragrant, and/or longer-lasting than conventional blooms. New varieties—like some of the hybrids I’ve recently written about—will almost certainly emerge from these experiments. Researchers can learn from the various mutations to think about what might be beneficial in the long-time both to space colonists and to growers on Earth. 

Sesame Street fans will know what this means: worms in spaaace!