Tomatoes, Salmonella, and Spacehab

The recent problem with salmonella-carrying tomatoes could turn out to be an early boost for the industrialization of space.

Spacehab, Inc., is a small company that flies scientific experiments on shutle flights and ISS-- when it can. Other companies would like to fly experiments, but acquiring the space onboard is difficult. Spacehab was able to get a salmonella experiment onboard the most recent shuttle flight, just as the story about salmonella in commercially grown tomatoes was breaking. Early results from that study will soon be on the way to FDA researchers.

If pharmaceutical research breaks out as a space industry-- usinng the environments of space and microgravity to give us insights that we couldn't get on Earth-- it could be the catalyst for private industry and investment to move into space in a big way. If it turns out certain drugs can only or best be produced in microgravity, humanity will be finally and firmly on the road to creating a spacefaring civilization.