World's first rice seeds harvested in orbit onboard China Space Station return to EarthBy Fan Anqi and Fan Wei Published: Dec 05, 2022 08:02 PM Updated: Dec 05, 2022 07:55 PMThe third batch of space science experiment samples, including the world's first rice seedlings harvested in space, arrives with Shenzhou-14's return capsule on December 4, 2022.Photo: The Chinese Academy of SciencesWith the return of the Shenzhou-14 crew on Sunday night, the third batch of space science experiment samples that arrived with the return capsule were delivered to Beijing in the early hours of Monday, including the world's first rice seedlings harvested in space.Researchers chose thale cress and rice to conduct the experiment because thale cress represents many kinds of vegetables, such as bok choy and oilseed rape, while rice represents many grain crops, such as wheat and corn, the Global Times learned from Zheng Huiqiong, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences, also the team leader of the program, on Monday."As the development of manned deep-space exploration strides forward, even eyeing a future landing on Mars, it is impossible to rely solely on food brought from the Earth to meet long-term space travel needs, so the problem of growing food in space must be solved," Zheng said."Space breeding requires two conditions, one is microgravity and the other is cosmic ray irradiation that causes genetic mutation.Now with the platform for extravehicular experiments on the Mengtian lab module of China's space station, we can put our space breeding experimental payloads outside the cabin, and the results would be more valuable," Song Zhongping, a space observer and TV commentator, told the Global Times on Monday."