Plants could be used to grow medicines in space, study shows: « UC San Diego engineers are growing plants in simulated space conditions to explore their potential for producing pharmaceuticals in space. »
https://today.ucsd.edu/story/plants-could-be-used-to-grow-medicines-in-space-study-shows
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« The team developed a simple method to grow and repeatedly harvest pharmaceuticals from plants under space-like conditions, without destroying the plants or generating large amounts of waste. The method could also help bring low-cost pharmaceutical production to resource-limited areas on Earth. »
Reference: Opdensteinen, P., Lewin, K., Jain, A. *et al.* Streamlined molecular farming of plant virus therapeutics for space flight and other low-resource environments. *npj Sci. Plants* **2**, 16 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44383-026-00030-y
Should we grow medical plants on earth or in space?
Did my master’s thesis on the subject of bioregenerative life support. Glad to see certain aspects and uses of that tech and methodology are still being advanced!
Honestly, this is the kind of sci-fi future I’m here for. Instead of just trying to pack a pharmacy’s worth of every possible medicine for a multi-year Mars mission, we could grow our own targeted treatments on-demand. It solves so many problems at once: shelf-life, weight limits, and even adapting to unforeseen health issues. Plus, there’s something deeply comforting about the idea of a little spacecraft greenhouse nurturing plants that become medicine. Hope they’re looking at pain relievers and antibiotics first!