Sunday Supplement: Pachamama in Space

A student astrobotany experiment named after an ancient Earth goddess

Hello, Gardeners of the Galaxy, and welcome to the GotG Sunday Supplement, premium content for my top Rocket Boosters!

With a crew of six NASA astronauts aboard, the space shuttle Discovery heads for its nineteenth Earth-orbital mission on 9 Sept 1994. Onboard were astronauts Richard N. Richards, L. Blaine Hammond, Carl J. Meade, Mark C. Lee, Susan J. Helms and Jerry M. Linenger. Photo credit: NASA

Following the launch of Brazilian chickpeas into space on NS-31 last month, I have been researching other space plant experiments with a link to Latin America.

In September 1994, Space Shuttle Discovery launched on its STS-64 mission, carrying an undergraduate student experiment called Pachamama. Pachamama is an Earth Mother/fertility goddess revered by the Indigenous peoples of the Andes, and the experiment was conceived by a student from Bolivia - none other than Oscar Monje, now a research scientist at the Kennedy Space Center. He is a member of the Advanced Plant Habitat and Space Crop Production teams and develops novel sustainable water delivery and plant health monitoring technologies for space crop production.

The Pachamama experiment was part of NASA’s Getaway Special' program, which allowed small, self-contained experimental payloads to be flown on the Space Shuttle at low cost.