Cannabis Seeds Launched To Orbit By SpaceX Crash Into Sea, Setting Back Mission To Grow Marijuana On Mars

A science experiment intended to study how cannabis seeds fare in space—in hopes of one day planting the crop on the moon or even Mars—failed earlier this week when a capsule carrying the payload crashed into the Pacific Ocean.

Aboard the capsule were about 150 cannabis seeds, which the organizers of the project hoped to study after the vehicle’s return to earth. But a day after being launched into orbit on a SpaceX rocket Monday, the capsule’s parachute reportedly failed and it crashed into the sea.

The capsule’s payload—including not just dozens of cannabis seeds but also the remains of more than 160 deceased people, whose loved ones had paid to send them briefly into space—is currently believed to be unrecoverable.

“As a result of this unforeseen event, we believe that we will not be able to recover or return the flight capsules aboard,” the memorial company, Celestis, said in a statement, according to Gizmodo. “We share in the disappointment of our families, and we offer our sincerest gratitude for their trust.”

The Exploration Company, maker of the 1.6-ton reentry capsule known as Nyx, has said it’s “still investigating the root causes and will share more information soon,” explaining on Tuesday that it lost contact with the craft “a few minutes before splash down.”

As for the cannabis seeds, they were contained in a biological incubator called MayaSat-1. Scientists at Martian Grow, the group behind the project, hoped to study how conditions in space—including microgravity and cosmic radiation—affected germination and development of the plants.

Separate organizers launched both hemp tissue and coffee to the International Space Station in 2020, though findings from that mission are reportedly still unpublished.

The Martian Grow team is headed by Božidar Radišič at the Research Nature Institute, in Slovenia. He told WIRED ahead of the project launch that if humans want to settle on the moon or Mars, cannabis could be indispensable.

“Sooner or later, we will have lunar bases, and cannabis, with its versatility, is the ideal plant to supply those projects,” Radišič said. “It can be a source of food, protein, building materials, textiles, hemp, plastic, and medicine. I don’t think many other plants give us all these things.”

While cannabis plants are comparatively hardy and known for being resistant to stressors such as UV light and radiation, the goal of the current project was to see how space affected the seeds’ genetics.

“The point is to explore how, and if, cosmic conditions affect cannabis genetics, and we may only find this out after several generations,” Radišič said.

The team also intended to study changes in the plant’s structure and morphology, looking at factors such as leaf size, water use, root growth, chlorophyll content and rate of photosynthesis.

“Whether there are changes or not, both results will be important for the future, so we know how to grow cannabis in the space environment,” Radišič told WIRED.

The publication notes that humans are still some time away from growing marijuana on the moon or Mars, pointing out that factors such as microgravity, extreme temperatures, toxins a lack of nutrients in the soil are likely obstacles to cultivation.

“We will have to adapt to the environment on Mars, and slowly adapt our plants for them to survive,” Petra Knaus, the CEO of Genoplant, which is also developing a space capsule, told WIRED. “For now, we believe it will only be possible [to grow plants] in a closed system container with the conditions adapted.”

As for other intersections of cannabis and the cosmos, in 2018, the fact-checking website Snopes debunked an earlier article that suggested marijuana contained “‘alien DNA’ from outside our solar system.”

That same year, renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson advised against actually using marijuana in space, warning that “if you do anything to alter your understanding of what is reality, that’s not in the interest of your health.”

Relatedly, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said earlier this year that he thought it was a “great idea” to mandate drug testing of federal government workers. Months later, a Democratic congresswoman filed a bill that would require Musk and other Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) workers to submit to drug testing to maintain their “special government employee” status.

In addition to awkwardly puffing a marijuana joint on Joe Rogan’s podcast while at the helm of a federally contracted aerospace company (Musk later claimed he never inhaled), the SpaceX CEO has reportedly been a heavy user of ketamine, so much so that it interfered with his ability to urinate.

Separately, in the world of cannabis genetics, scientists reported last month that they’ve identified 33 “significant markers” in the cannabis genome that “significantly influence cannabinoid production”—a finding they say promises to drive the development of new plant varieties with specific cannabinoid profiles.

Published in the journal The Plant Genome, the results “offer valuable guidance for Cannabis breeding programs, enabling the use of precise genetic markers to select and refine promising Cannabis varieties,” authors said.

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