Cannabis is going into space courtesy of SpaceX

797 0

The Elon Musk company is helping explore what happens to cannabis in zero gravity

A very interesting experiment might be happening in the near future, and it involves cannabis and outer space. The spacecraft manufacturing company, SpaceX, is joining forces with a research lab based in Colorado to take two different products to the International Space Station in March. Hemp and coffee plants will experience a zero-gravity atmosphere in an effort to understand what happens to the plants in this kind of environment.

The agricultural biotech company providing the lucky plants is Front Range Biosciences. It breeds varieties of hemp and coffee plants that are genetically consistent. Two more partners are part of the challenge – the University of Colorado and a tech startup company calls Space Cells. Aboard the SpaceX CRS-20 cargo flight, more than 480 plant cell cultures will be launched into space in March 2020. The journey will be inside of a chamber with regulated conditions for around 30 days. These plants will be monitored by a team of astronauts and also a group on Earth that will watch what happens to the plants for a month before they are brought back.

This is one of the first times anyone is researching the effects of microgravity and spaceflight on hemp and coffee cell cultures,” said Dr. Jonathan Vaught, Co-Founder, and CEO of Front Range Biosciences. He added, “There is science to support the theory that plants in space experience mutations. This is an opportunity to see whether those mutations hold up once brought back to earth and if there are new commercial applications.” The plants will be examined once they are back on earth for any changes after being exposed to microgravity and radiation.