An Irish environmental chemist and the Limerick Institute of Technology (LIT) are to play a key part in plans by the US to put a man on Mars.
Offaly-born Ms Michelle McKeon has been seconded to NASA to carry out research on how to feed astronauts on the long 780-million-plus kilometre trip to the Red Planet.
Ms McKeon, who is a lecturer with the LIT, is working on a way of incorporating sphagnum moss, native to the International Nature Reserve at Clara, Co Offaly, into NASA's long-term space flight agriculture without water systems.
Astronauts bring rations on their journeys through space, but on a trip as far distant as Mars, they will have to grow their own food.
They would have to do this in the confines of a spacecraft using hydroponics - agriculture without water.
Ms McKeon's ambition is to be chosen as an astronaut at the next NASA astronaut selection programme, in 2006.She also hopes her research can be used to help planet colonists grow food.
The young environmental chemist, who hopes to go where no Irish person has gone before, said the bog is part of Ireland's heritage.
"Two Famine roads built on Clara bog are a history in themselves. All bogs are heritage sites as they have specific flora and fauna whose habitats cannot exist anywhere else," Ms McKeon said.
Clara bog was one of the few surviving, relatively intact, raised bogs, and the only one of its kind in Europe, she added.
Ms McKeon came to the attention of NASA through her involvement in research on Clara bog. Through a FÁS programme three years ago, she set up the Environmental Wetland Research Centre in LIT to develop strategies for the conservation and management of Irish wetland areas.
The centre is unique in Ireland.
Ms McKeon has an analytical chemistry degree from Cork Institute of Technology and prior to that got her certificate and diploma from LIT. She also has a masters in biochemistry from the University of Limerick. She is completing her PhD thesis on Clara bog.
Mr Colin McLean, external services manager at LIT, said Ms Keon's NASA research will strengthen the reputation of Irish scientists generally and the standing of Limerick Institute of Technology in particular.
"The work is new and innovative and will ensure Ireland is contributing to the American space programme.