University of Florida professor, turned astronaut, continues to work on his research collected in space during his August 29 flight.
Dr. Robert Ferl flew on Blue Origin’s New Shepard Rocket for a 15 minute suborbital journey – the same flight time of first American astronaut Alan B. Shepard in 1961. But Ferl had extra baggage in tow.
Aboard the flight, Ferl carried 8 Kennedy Space Center Fixation Tubes (KFTs) filled with little plants. These plants, called arabidopsis thaliana, were being tested to see how their genetics change when brought into micro gravitational environments.
The tubes were activated at four different points: on ground before takeoff, upon reaching microgravity, at the end of the weightless period and when he landed. The activation includes combining the plants with RNAlater, a chemical used to freeze the genetic translation of plants to better understand their message in the moment of contact with the chemical.
In preparation for the historic mission, Ferl would run practices in the Institute of Food and Agricultural Studies at UF. During these practices, he would simulate exactly how the experiment would be performed when going into the capsule, loading the plants on his legs and activating the solution for the plants inside the tubes.
“In one part it was a little bit weird,” said Ferl. “I mean you have to understand that you’re walking into the lab – wearing a spacesuit – and you’re just down the hall from the restroom and there’s the other laboratories and people are walking around and WHAT IS THAT GUY DOING?!”
The in-house tests were run with co-principal investigator Dr. Anna-Lisa Paul, Director for the Interdisciplinary Center for Biotechnology Research, and Jordan Callahan, a research coordinator at IFAS. Both were present during the real launch in Blue Origin’s West Texas location.
Paul and Ferl have been working together for over a decade on different experiments with plants in novel environments, like that found in space.
“Although this is a big deal – I mean, it is a big deal – and it is a first, it’s also something that is very humbling to be able to do and it’s an amazing responsibility,” said Paul. “You’re doing something for the first time, whether it’s you or whether it’s your team, it’s a humbling experience and it’s also a huge responsibility because you want to do it right.”
On ground, Callahan was replicating the exact experiment Ferl was conducting up in space to create a comparison of what changed between the plants’ genetic expression from both locations.
The rocket launched at 8:07a.m. Central Daylight Time on August 29, 2024 and reached a staggering 345,958 feet in altitude. Since this altitude reaches beyond the Karman atmosphere line – the internationally recognized boundary of space – all six passengers aboard are now officially considered astronauts.
“People don’t look at me differently when I go to Publix, so it’s not like I have antennas coming out of my head or anything else like that, but I am forever now – an astronaut,” said Ferl. “Nobody can ever take that away from me.”
Even though Ferl is the one that got to sit in the space seat, UF still got to experience the ride. As Ferl stepped out of the capsule that landed safely back on earth, he waved to everyone then slapped on an orange UF hat before going to greet his family.
“Hahaha! The hat. The ‘hat,’” said Ferl. “It actually turned out to be a really interesting sort of exercise in how to celebrate the fact that UF got to do this and to do it in a way that was both sort of muted and respectful but also active with regard that the notion that a university professor got to do something like this.”
Once the celebration was over, it was time to get back to work. Ferl met with Paul to bring the plants into the on-ground laboratory with Callahan to prepare them to be shipped back to Florida. They were kept in small tubes and were frozen for preservation.
After being transported to Gainesville, the plants were kept at IFAS in UF. They were later cut up into smaller pieces to have their RNA evaluated for genetic change. Ferl says that it will take months to see any results from this experiment.
This is not the first time that Blue Origin has collaborated with UF. Swamp Launch, the award-winning student design team that enables students to design, build, and launch high-powered rockets, has been sponsored by Blue Origin for the past few years. President of Swamp Launch Rocket Team, Madison Maish, says Swamp Launch is incredibly grateful for their partnership and the help they provide to finance their rocket building.
“The launch was very meaningful to me because I had that connection through the University of Florida,” said Maish. “Being able to see them do something so historic and knowing they work with us was so amazing to experience.”
Ferl says that going forward, his goal is to make sure more people like him get opportunities like this one.
“Imagine being an oceanographer who’s never been on a boat. Imagine being a forester who’s never gone out to touch a tree. Imagine being a space scientist who’s never been to space! I want that to change,” said Ferl “When you ask me what it feels like to be the first, it feels like I have a duty to make sure I’m not the last.”