What happens when mushrooms are sent into space and brought back to Earth? Researchers in Australia turned that question into an unusual food experiment after sending edible fungi to the International Space Station (ISS). In August 2024, a team from Swinburne University of Technology sent 36 small vials containing fungal mycelium aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The samples travelled to the ISS, where they remained for almost a month before eventually returning to Earth.
The experiment did not end in a laboratory. After the fungi came back to Australia in 2025, the researchers successfully grew mushrooms from the space-travelled samples and even cooked some of them into a creamy pasta sauce.
