NASA’s core mission is to explore space and aeronautics, expand scientific knowledge, develop breakthrough technologies, and ultimately bring new knowledge and opportunity back to Earth. What many people do not realize is that some of NASA’s most impactful discoveries have reshaped industries far beyond aerospace, including modern agriculture.

Vertical farming and LED lighting are two widely adopted agtech innovations that trace their roots back to space research. Scientists studying long-duration space missions discovered that specific wavelengths of blue light influence how the human body produces melatonin, helping regulate circadian rhythms in environments without natural daylight. That same research revealed that precisely tuned light spectra could support photosynthesis and plant growth indoors. These findings laid the groundwork for modern LED grow lighting. Around the same time, Columbia University introduced the concept of vertical farming, defined as multi-level crop production within controlled environments. The approach was tested for space-based food production and has since become a cornerstone of urban and indoor agriculture on Earth.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Dylan Taylor, Chairman and CEO of Voyager Space, a multinational space exploration company building next-generation space infrastructure for NASA and other global space agencies, suggested that seeds may represent the next frontier for space-based agricultural technology. Taylor emphasized that space presents extraordinary opportunities for agtech research that could meaningfully improve crop performance, resilience, and sustainability back on Earth.

That thesis is already being tested. StarLab Oasis, an Abu Dhabi-based agricultural research firm partnered with Voyager Space, is leveraging the space environment’s unique combination of microgravity, deep-space radiation, and launch vibration to develop crop seeds with novel and beneficial traits. On Earth, plant breeders routinely apply physical stressors such as drought, temperature fluctuations, nutrient limitation, and high-intensity light to identify plants that retain vigor, yield efficiently, and resist disease and pests. Space takes this concept to an entirely new level. According to the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, space breeding has already produced more than 200 plant and fruit varieties, including rice, wheat, maize, soybeans, cotton, and tomatoes. These varieties have generated an estimated $29.9 billion worth of agricultural output, totaling more than 1.3 million tonnes of food.

Cannabis, To the Moon

Martian Grow is now bringing this space-breeding approach to cannabis. Founded by Božidar Radišič, a longtime cannabis researcher at the University of Ljubljana’s Faculty of Health Sciences in Slovenia, the company is focused on formal scientific research into cannabis biology and real-world applications. Martian Grow launched its first space-breeding mission on June 23, 2025, aboard a SpaceX rocket from Vandenberg, California. The research capsule itself was designed and sealed in Germany.

That initial mission did not go as planned. The capsule failed during atmospheric reentry, and the seeds were not recovered, meaning no experimental data could be collected. While disappointing, the outcome was not entirely unexpected in a field where engineering, physics, and biology intersect under extreme conditions.

Since then, Martian Grow has regrouped and significantly strengthened its leadership and technical team by bringing on American executive John Bernard McQueeney as CEO. McQueeney and his partner, Will Jasper, first attempted to send cannabis seeds into space in 2023 after learning about a Chinese space-breeding experiment that produced a drought-resistant wheat variety. That variety has since become the second most widely grown wheat strain in China.

Their initial proposal to conduct cannabis research aboard the International Space Station was rejected by the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, or CASIS, due to cannabis’s Schedule I status at the time. CASIS serves as the United States’ operational arm of the ISS National Laboratory, which Congress established to expand access to the space environment and unlock research and commercialization opportunities in low Earth orbit.

In an interview, McQueeney explained that space-based seed experiments are well established across agriculture. Seeds are routinely sent into orbit and exposed to cosmic radiation, microgravity, extreme cold, and other stressors. “That combination of stressors induces higher rates of mutation in the genome, particularly in embryonic cells that are not yet fully developed,” McQueeney said. “Seeds are one of the most effective biological sample types for this kind of research.”

June 2026 Lift Off

As Martian Grow prepares for its next launch in June 2026, the company has partnered with some of the most respected names in legacy cannabis genetics. These collaborators are providing original genetics that will be grown out post-mission and closely analyzed for phenotypic variation, genetic mutation, and trait expression.

According to McQueeney, the growing list of partners includes Phylos BioScience, Sensi Seeds in the Netherlands, Canadian breeder Dwight Diotte, Huckleberry Hill Farms, Ridgeline Farms, and Kevin Jodrey of Wonderland Farms and the Cookies R&D Lab. The team has also been joined by Professor Lumír Hanuš, one of the world’s most respected cannabis scientists. Hanuš previously worked in Raphael Mechoulam’s laboratory in Israel and is credited with describing anandamide, the first endocannabinoid identified in the human brain.

The Plan

Martian Grow’s research plan is ambitious and methodical. Cannabis seeds will be sent to low Earth orbit for nine months, where they will be exposed to sustained microgravity and cosmic radiation. After recovery, the seeds will be grown under tightly controlled conditions on Earth to evaluate phenotypic, genetic, and epigenetic changes.

Biology adapts when exposed to pressures outside its normal environment. Spaceflight introduces two pressures that plants never evolved to manage: microgravity and cosmic radiation. When stable parent-line seeds spend extended time in orbit, they are forced to reorganize internal regulatory systems simply to survive. Those changes can result in entirely new expressions of vigor, yield, and resilience.

McQueeney points to studies from China conducted over the past decade showing that space environments induce higher mutation rates than traditional radiation-based breeding methods on Earth.

Martian Grow compares space-exposed seeds to Earth-based controls using whole-genome sequencing, transcriptomics, epigenetic analysis, metabolomics, and AI-driven multi-omic modeling. This approach enables researchers to map the full causal chain linking the environment, biological stress, adaptive responses, and heritable trait development.

Radišič notes that the past year has been spent rigorously preparing for the June 2026 flight. The team has tested its capsules in Germany using plasma wind tunnels designed to simulate reentry conditions, including the extreme heat and aerothermal forces experienced during high-speed atmospheric descent. The company’s thermal protection system is led by Maximilian Maigler, PhD, one of the world’s most prominent German space scientists, who has already delivered two thermal protection designs for Mars landings.

Martian Grow currently has three launches scheduled and is operationally prepared for up to five missions. The company plans to use traditional CubeSat and PocketCube dispensers mounted aboard SpaceX rockets.

Tens of millions of dollars have already been invested globally in similar space-breeding experiments across major crop varieties. While Martian Grow has secured a seed round to support its first launch, the company is actively seeking additional investment to fund future missions and expand its research pipeline.

Those interested in learning more can contact John Bernard McQueeney, CEO, at john@martiangrow.com