• Question: Why did you decide that you wanted to research biology in space, rather than just do biology on earth?

    Asked by Wardell'sAstronauts to Anne on 7 Oct 2015.
    • Photo: Anne Visscher

      Anne Visscher answered on 7 Oct 2015:

      Hi Wardell’sAstronauts,

      A lot of my work is done on Earth, even though some (not all!!) of the questions I am trying to answer are related to space. For example, when the rovers on Mars found high levels of magnesium in the soil there, I did experiments with magnesium and plants on Earth. But, some questions are difficult to answer on Earth. For example we are planning to send seeds to the outside of the International Space Station to see if they can survive vacuum and UV radiation. It would be difficult to mimic all those space conditions on Earth, so that is why, in this case, it will be better to send the seeds to space.

      Anne

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