NASA Yeast Mission: Experiments on Artemis 1 to Help Astronauts Survive Cosmic Radiation

Although NASA isn't baking bread in space yet, yeast may be crucial in preparing people to go farther into outer space and cosmic ray through Artemis 1 mission.

In addition to orbiting the moon, NASA's uncrewed Artemis 1 mission will do more with its scheduled launch. Additionally, NASA will send several other tasks into orbit. One of these is BioSentinel, which will send yeast into deep space to help researchers better understand how radiation can impact people on protracted journeys.

In a statement made last week, NASA compared space radiation to a nanoscale demolition derby. As NASA plans to send people out for longer-term missions to the moon and Mars, an issue that might harm living cells will need to be solved.

NASA to Send Yeast Experiments on Artemis 1

The first biological material to leave Earth's orbit in fifty years will be sent by University of British Columbia pharmaceutical scientist Corey Nislow and his team's collaboration with NASA to lessen the impacts of cosmic radiation. And yeast, which is often found in a pantry, serves as a stand-in for actual astronauts.

"Even though yeast and human beings are separated by a million years of evolutionary time, half of all yeast genes function nearly identically to human genes," Nislow said on CBC News.

A single-celled creature called yeast has roughly 6,000 genes. The yeast cells in the experiment onboard the Orion spacecraft atop Artemis 1 have been individually tweaked to generate 6,000 genetically distinct forms, according to Nislow, who holds the Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in translational genomics. Each variant replaces a separate gene with a small piece of distinctive DNA known as a "barcode," which enables researchers to recognize and trace the variant quickly.

The dried yeast will be remotely rehydrated once the spaceship has left the Earth's magnetic field so it may grow and divide while being attacked by cosmic radiation. The shoebox-sized container housing the experiment will be found and brought back to Nislow's lab at UBC when the spacecraft splashes down in the Pacific Ocean five or six weeks later. The goal is to identify specific genes in the radiation-resistant or damage-repairable cells.

(Photo : GREGG NEWTON/AFP via Getty Images)
The Artemis I rocket is ferried atop its mobile launch platform back to the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 26, 2022.

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Yeast Contributions to Science Community

Even fewer will pay much attention to the yeast they are carrying. Time Magazine did note, however, that transporting yeast to space is a significant achievement for the scientific world.

NASA will launch a shoebox-sized CubeSat named BioSentinel from the SLS with microscopic yeast samples on board. Solar particles and high-energy cosmic rays, which will cause extreme heat, might "target" these samples.

While some of the sensors on board BioSentinel will measure the radiation's intensity, much smaller, more accurate ones-known as microfluidics cards, built to look at extremely small quantities of liquid-will monitor the yeast's health and relay the data they gather back to Earth.

According to a statement from the University of British Columbia, yeast is a useful alternative for assessing biological processes, such as growth, mortality, and DNA damage.

The samples aboard BioSentinel, which will have the distinction of flying further in space than any creatures from Earth, will provide a great deal about the odds of the astronauts arriving after.