UF professor becomes first academic to do research in space

Rob Ferl went to space as part of a NASA-funded program on Blue Origin’s New Shepard.
By
Divya Kumar - Times staff
Published Aug. 31

University of Florida professor Rob Ferl first began doing space-related research in the 1990s.

In 2021, he and research partner Anna-Lisa Paul sent test tubes with British billionaire Richard Branson on a voyage to space on Virgin Galactic’s Unity spaceship. In 2022, they grew plants using soil from the moon. They’ve had 12 experiments at the International Space Station.

On Thursday, Ferl made history again when he became the first academic to conduct an experiment in space on a suborbital spacecraft through a NASA-funded program.

At 8:07 a.m. Thursday, Ferl and five other passengers launched on the Jeff Bezos-founded Blue Origin New Shepard to an altitude of 345,958 feet.

They spent several minutes in space before returning at 8:19 a.m. to West Texas.

Ferl’s experiment looked at how plants adapt in space, focusing on which genes are activated. He took samples prior to launch, then again from test tubes velcroed to his space suit in microgravity and again before reentry. The samples were preserved in special tubes that he and Paul developed. The researchers will spend the upcoming months analyzing the samples collected.

“It was everything that I thought it might be, and more so,” Ferl said. “If you have ever thought about what an amazing trip to space might look and feel like, I guarantee you, it does feel like that.”

Ferl said he loved the development of commercial space flights because they open up new routes to space.

Ferl said he’s excited about the prospect of researchers going to space and hopes his flight opens the door to further exploration.

“I think we have to understand what the limits of our life, our kind of life, is,” he said. “And so one of the big things to be able to take away from this research is, is how adaptable is our terrestrial life to living elsewhere?”

Divya Kumar - Higher Education Reporter
Divya Kumar is the higher education reporter. Reach her at dkumar@tampabay.com.