Astronaut updates students on LIT space project

INTERNATIONAL Space Station (ISS) astronaut Gregory Johnson touched down at Limerick Institute of Technology recently to give a talk on the college’s experiment that was launched into space in September.

Mr Johnson gave a presentation to national and secondary school students from Limerick and Clare on LIT’s experiment examining whether plants can be grown in space, which was sent on a 22 million kilometre round trip to the ISS.

He also talked about his two space shuttle flights, revealing that he grew 4.3 centimetres in space.

The symposium was LIT’s anchor event for Science Week, which was coordinated by Science Foundation Ireland’s Discover Programme.

The event saw the first unveiling of the 1.5 litre box containing the clover plant that was flown to the space station and spent 31 days there in the care of astronauts until it arrived back to earth earlier this month.

Mr Johnson, now manager of the ISS US National Laboratory, said that LIT’s recent space initiatives are remarkable for an institute of its size.  “I think it’s fascinating what LIT is doing up in space in plants. All root systems are based on gravity so what happens when they don’t have gravity. That’s going to be very interesting information.

“For an Institute here in Ireland to have had an experiment on the final space shuttle mission and now one to the ISS speaks to the energy and dedication of the faculty and the community. It also shows it has followed its own dream to have a significant impact on the next generation of space scientists and explorers,” added Mr Johnson.

LIT’s principal investigator for the ISS experiment, Professor Gary Stutte, said: “It’s been an exciting few weeks, getting our experiment to the ISS and back. And having Gregory here validates a lot of what we are doing.

“Our work has also pretty much identified LIT as a platform in Ireland for launching experiments to space and we are already intent on sending our experiment back up to the ISS for more research.”