In a cosmic first for the local agricultural sector, indigenous South African (SA) Rooibos seeds are bound for outer space this October to test whether the famous herbal tea can survive the extreme environment of the International Space Station.<\/p>\n
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The “Rooibos in Space” project, spearheaded by the SA Rooibos Council, is designed to anchor a pioneering Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics research partnership. The council is teaming up with Parklands College in Cape Town and seven local schools from the Cederberg region in the Western Cape, the primary agricultural home of Rooibos.<\/p>\n
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Council Spokesperson Adele du Toit explained that while the long-term goal is to understand the logistics of off-planet farming, the immediate priority is to fire up the imaginations of young SA learners.<\/p>\n
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“The main reason is to inspire young learners to follow careers in science, technology, education, innovation and just to think bigger things and to ask bigger questions in the science environment,” du Toit said.<\/p>\n
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Researchers want to closely monitor how the harsh cosmic environment and zero gravity alter the seeds. According to du Toit, the mission forms part of a much broader, forward-looking scientific roadmap aimed at discovering how global food and beverage crops can adapt to extraterrestrial environments should humanity ever need to cultivate crops in space.<\/p>\n
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–ChannelAfrica–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":39999,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-39998","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Indigenous South African Rooibos seeds set for launch into outer space","published_date":"2026-07-19 14:08:01","news_description":"Indigenous South African Rooibos seeds set for launch into outer space","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/39998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/39998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40000,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/39998\/revisions\/40000"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=39998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}