{"id":240414,"date":"2026-07-07T07:25:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T12:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/growing-plants-in-space-the-science-behind-future-moon-and-mars-colonies-mark-ciotola"},"modified":"2026-07-07T07:25:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T12:25:11","slug":"growing-plants-in-space-the-science-behind-future-moon-and-mars-colonies-mark-ciotola","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/growing-plants-in-space-the-science-behind-future-moon-and-mars-colonies-mark-ciotola","title":{"rendered":"Growing Plants in Space: The Science Behind Future Moon and Mars Colonies | Mark Ciotola"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/RM_DbaZqfKI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Mark Ciotola, CEO and Co-Founder of Sustain Space.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>Everyone talks about getting humans to Mars. But almost nobody talks about the harder question \u2014 how do you keep them alive once they get there? My guest today says the answer isn\u2019t bigger rockets \u2014 it\u2019s plants.<\/p>\n<p>Mark Ciotola is CEO and Co-Founder of Sustain Space (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sustainspace.com\/),\">https:\/\/www.sustainspace.com\/),<\/a> a company focused on developing regenerative life-support technologies for future space missions while translating those innovations to improve agriculture and sustainability on Earth. Through Sustain Space\u2019s Orbital Genomics initiative, he is helping advance research into growing plants in space environments \u2014 an essential capability for long-duration missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.<\/p>\n<p>Mark\u2019s career spans entrepreneurship, academia, industry, and government, including work with NASA, Genentech, Applied Biosystems, Intuit, Carnegie Mellon University, Monash University, San Francisco State University, and Singularity University, where he served as Entrepreneur-in-Residence and faculty member in Space and Physical Sciences.<\/p>\n<p>A physicist, entrepreneur, educator, and sustainability advocate, Mark is particularly interested in regenerative ecosystems, closed-loop life-support systems, space agriculture, and the broader question of how humanity can build a sustainable future both on Earth and beyond it.<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"> <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/growing-plants-in-space-the-science-behind-future-moon-and-mars-colonies-mark-ciotola\">Continue reading \u201cGrowing Plants in Space: The Science Behind Future Moon and Mars Colonies | Mark Ciotola\u201d | &gt;<\/a><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mark Ciotola, CEO and Co-Founder of Sustain Space. Everyone talks about getting humans to Mars. But almost nobody talks about the harder question \u2014 how do you keep them alive once they get there? My guest today says the answer isn\u2019t bigger rockets \u2014 it\u2019s plants. Mark Ciotola is CEO and Co-Founder of Sustain Space [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":400,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1527,1490,224,64,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-240414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alien-life","category-government","category-science","category-singularity","category-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/400"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240414\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}