The wonderfully weird things Ohio has sent into space

🥬 Space salad: Three recent Ohio University graduates designed an experiment to test how watercress grows in microgravity. The project is slated to fly to the International Space Station aboard SpaceX's CRS-34 resupply mission in May.

• Why watercress? It's nutritious, grows quickly and takes up little room — potentially useful qualities if humans someday need to grow food on the Moon or Mars.
• The seeds were packed into tiny three-chamber labs designed so astronauts could add water, grow the plants and then stop the experiment before sending the samples home.

🪱 Worms in orbit: In 2021, Ohio University researchers sent about 3 million microscopic C. elegans worms to the ISS.

• Researchers studied how their genes responded to microgravity to better understand what long spaceflights could do to astronauts' nerves and muscles.

🚀 Mason to the Moon: Forty avionics systems used aboard the Space Launch System for Artemis II were designed, built and tested by L3Harris teams in Mason.

• The electronics helped handle sensing, control, sequencing, data and power as the massive rocket launched four astronauts aboard Orion on April 1 for the first crewed trip around the Moon in more than 50 years.
• NASA also lists several Cincinnati companies among suppliers for its major exploration programs, including General Tool Co., Metalex Manufacturing and Metcut Research.

• And University of Cincinnati students built LEOPARDSat-1, a nanosatellite about the size of a loaf of bread that astronauts released from the International Space Station in July.

🌕 Cleveland's lunar connection: A precision-machined quick-release pin made by Jergens at its Cleveland plant flew aboard Artemis II.

• The company started in 1942 making airplane seat parts for the war effort.
• More than eight decades later, one of its parts traveled around the Moon.