Northwest scientists look to soil microbes to fuel space ambitions

Yuliya Farris buttons her lab coat as she strides over to a stack of about 10 white boxes at the front of the room. She hits the tops percussively with both hands.

“OK, this is me. First time touching it!” she calls over her shoulder to Marci Garcia, smiling.

Farris examines the stickers plastered on the outside: “Critical Space Item. Handle with Extreme Care.”

“Take one and just keep it,” Garcia tells her.

“Oh, I’m taking all of them,” Farris jokes back.

The boxes arrived at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory earlier in the morning to much anticipation from these scientists.

The cargo inside — about a hundred test tubes of frozen soil — has made an incredible journey, from a Washington State University research field in Prosser to the national lab in Richland for preparation to Kennedy Space Center in Florida and all the way up to the International Space Station.