Cannabis Seeds Launched To Orbit By SpaceX Crash Into Sea, Setting Back Mission To Grow Marijuana On Mars

A science experiment intended to study how cannabis seeds fare in space—in
hopes of one day planting the crop on the moon or even Mars—failed earlier
this week when a capsule carrying the payload crashed into the Pacific
Ocean.

Aboard the capsule were about 150 cannabis seeds, which the organizers of
the project hoped to study after the vehicle’s return to earth. But a day
after being launched into orbit on a SpaceX rocket Monday, the capsule’s
parachute reportedly failed and it crashed into the sea.

The capsule’s payload—including not just dozens of cannabis seeds but also
the remains of more than 160 deceased people, whose loved ones had paid to
send them briefly into space—is currently believed to be unrecoverable.

“As a result of this unforeseen event, we believe that we will not be able
to recover or return the flight capsules aboard,” the memorial company,
Celestis, said in a statement, according to Gizmodo. “We share in the
disappointment of our families, and we offer our sincerest gratitude for
their trust.”

The Exploration Company, maker of the 1.6-ton reentry capsule known as Nyx,
has said it’s “still investigating the root causes and will share more
information soon,” explaining on Tuesday that it lost contact with the
craft “a few minutes before splash down.”

As for the cannabis seeds, they were contained in a biological incubator
called MayaSat-1. Scientists at Martian Grow, the group behind the project,
hoped to study how conditions in space—including microgravity and cosmic
radiation—affected germination and development of the plants.

Separate organizers launched both hemp tissue and coffee to the
International Space Station in 2020, though findings from that mission are
reportedly still unpublished.

The Martian Grow team is headed by Božidar Radišič at the Research Nature
Institute, in Slovenia. He told WIRED ahead of the project launch that if
humans want to settle on the moon or Mars, cannabis could be indispensable.

“Sooner or later, we will have lunar bases, and cannabis, with its
versatility, is the ideal plant to supply those projects,” Radišič said.
“It can be a source of food, protein, building materials, textiles, hemp,
plastic, and medicine. I don’t think many other plants give us all these
things.”

While cannabis plants are comparatively hardy and known for being resistant
to stressors such as UV light and radiation, the goal of the current
project was to see how space affected the seeds’ genetics.

“The point is to explore how, and if, cosmic conditions affect cannabis
genetics, and we may only find this out after several generations,” Radišič
said.

The team also intended to study changes in the plant’s structure and
morphology, looking at factors such as leaf size, water use, root growth,
chlorophyll content and rate of photosynthesis.

“Whether there are changes or not, both results will be important for the
future, so we know how to grow cannabis in the space environment,” Radišič
told WIRED.

The publication notes that humans are still some time away from growing
marijuana on the moon or Mars, pointing out that factors such as
microgravity, extreme temperatures, toxins a lack of nutrients in the soil
are likely obstacles to cultivation.

“We will have to adapt to the environment on Mars, and slowly adapt our
plants for them to survive,” Petra Knaus, the CEO of Genoplant, which is
also developing a space capsule, told WIRED. “For now, we believe it will
only be possible [to grow plants] in a closed system container with the
conditions adapted.”

As for other intersections of cannabis and the cosmos, in 2018, the
fact-checking website Snopes debunked an earlier article that suggested
marijuana contained “‘alien DNA’ from outside our solar system.”

That same year, renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson advised against
actually using marijuana in space, warning that “if you do anything to
alter your understanding of what is reality, that’s not in the interest of
your health.”

Relatedly, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said earlier this year that he thought it
was a “great idea” to mandate drug testing of federal government workers.
Months later, a Democratic congresswoman filed a bill that would require
Musk and other Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) workers to submit
to drug testing to maintain their “special government employee” status.

In addition to awkwardly puffing a marijuana joint on Joe Rogan’s podcast
while at the helm of a federally contracted aerospace company (Musk later
claimed he never inhaled), the SpaceX CEO has reportedly been a heavy user
of ketamine, so much so that it interfered with his ability to urinate.

Separately, in the world of cannabis genetics, scientists reported last
month that they’ve identified 33 “significant markers” in the cannabis
genome that “significantly influence cannabinoid production”—a finding they
say promises to drive the development of new plant varieties with specific
cannabinoid profiles.

Published in the journal The Plant Genome, the results “offer valuable
guidance for *Cannabis *breeding programs, enabling the use of precise
genetic markers to select and refine promising *Cannabis* varieties,”
authors said.

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The post Cannabis Seeds Launched To Orbit By SpaceX Crash Into Sea, Setting
Back Mission To Grow Marijuana On Mars appeared first on Marijuana Moment.