Apollo Botany Experiments and Artemis: Discussion of Botany Experiment Records Digitized as Part of the Apollo Records Synthesis Project (ARSP)

The Artemis Program, with its objective of establishing a sustained human presence on the moon, has rekindled interest in lunar botany as an area of inquiry. Limited availability of collected lunar regolith samples for plant growth experiments underlines the need to leverage all existing historic datasets. As part of NASA’s Life Sciences Data Archive’s (LSDA) Apollo Records Synthesis Project (ARSP), a collection of historic Apollo era botany experiment research records from the former Space Life Sciences Archival Library (SLSAL) collection, these records have been digitized to improve access for data reuse. The records are related to post-mission quarantine experiments conducted to characterize any pathogenic effects of lunar regolith on exposed plant specimens and includes several possible dataset sources such as microscopy photos, laboratory notebooks, correspondence, data sheets, and gas chromatography results. This collection includes the output of investigations of taxa previously under-investigated in the context of space biology. An unusually phylogenetically diverse group of plants are represented in this dataset (including Pinaceae, Poeaceae, Solanaceae, Apiaceae and more). This presentation will discuss the contents of the collection, their historic context, the digitization of the collection, and the opportunities they may provide when placed in the larger corpus of lunar botany regolith experiments.