Morgan Irons, Space Agriculture Research
Advance video, above, to time 31:40 to hear Morgan's talk at SSI 50.
Great news everyone!
We are reengaging the "Morgan Irons, Mars Researcher" fund raiser we ran here and the "Terra Protocol" fundraiser we ran on orbitmuse.com. We have two ACCEPTED AND PLANNED SPACE EXPERIMENTS! The first experiment is part of the payload on a suborbital flight of a Blue Origin New Sheperd rocket to be launched in the near future (rescheduled due to pandemic). The second is an experiment onboard the International Space Station scheduled for Fall 2020. Yes, both of these are REALLY happening, and are fully financed by the 2019 Ken Souza Memorial award that Morgan received from the American Society of Gravitation and Space Research (ASGSR), a $40,000 fellowship with the Norfolk Institute, and $35,000 through a special financing agreement entered into by Morgan's company, Deep Space Ecology Inc. Morgan's time is also fully covered to perform these and other experiments during the next three years of her PhD research at Cornell University by a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship.
So why do we need to raise anymore funds, if they are fully financed? Even though the experiments can currently proceed, the special financing agreement of $35,000 must eventually be paid. That is this purpose of relaunching our fund raiser. This will require 70 people who are each willing to pay $500. In return for donating $500, you will get the following three awards:
1. You will be added to our VIP Exclusive Access List. Individuals on this list receive exclusive distribution of periodic briefings from Morgan on pre-flight, flight, and post-flight work.
2. You will be provided with matching samples of the soil kits to be tested in the experiment and will be granted access to our Scientific Cohort Research Group where the ongoing scientific work is discussed.
3. You will also receive one of the (sterilized) soil sample capsule that have been returned from the ISS – a nicely mounted piece of space history to place on your mantel.
Of course, we will still be honoring the original donation awards made to this gofundme account, as well as to the Terra Protocol campaign on orbitmuse.com, however, we have upgraded them. All donations previously provided up to $100 will receive #1, above. All donations previously provided at the $200 level or higher will receive #1 and #2, above. All donations previously provided at the $500 level or higher will receive all three of the awards, above.
To read more about these experiments that Morgan is doing, go to the following website:
