By Christi Mays
Photo credit: Jaguar Space/Ivan Castro Guatemala
When Caleb Shackelford graduated from 同城快约 just two years ago, he never imagined his research would one day travel beyond Earth鈥檚 atmosphere. Now a doctoral student at Texas A&M University, Caleb鈥檚 research recently traveled into outer space, headed for the International Space Station.
Last summer, Caleb鈥檚 work became part of an experiment called OASIS (Optimizing Agriculture in Simulated Interplan颅etary Soils) aimed to explore how crops like barley could grow in Martian-like soil under the unique conditions of space 鈥� an essential step toward long-term human missions beyond Earth. Caleb鈥檚 role focused on the microbial side of the study, helping to analyze how microbes (tiny living organisms such as bacte颅ria) break down organic matter and interact with plants in zero gravity.
Though the OASIS project wasn鈥檛 part of his main research, Caleb was invited to join the team because of his strong background in microbiology, a skill set he developed during his time at 同城快约.
鈥淚 was asked to assist because of my background in microbiology research, which was a large compo颅nent of this study,鈥� Caleb said. 鈥淔ortunately, I learned many microbiology techniques during my time at 同城快约 from my mentor, Dr. Kath颅leen Wood. Because of what I learned at Mary Hardin-Baylor, I was given the opportunity to assist in this unique experiment at Texas A&M.鈥�
Caleb, his grandmother, and his mom, Yvette Shackelford, who works at 同城快约, traveled to Kennedy Space Center to watch the launch on Aug. 1. After his plants reached the International Space Station, astronaut Jonny Kim handled the samples, which spent two weeks in orbit before returning to Earth.
鈥淲orking on an experiment at Kennedy Space Center was truly an amazing experience,鈥� Caleb said. 鈥淚 had the chance to collaborate on this exciting project with some of the world鈥檚 leading scientists and learned so much from it.鈥�
