NASA’s citizen science projects allow volunteers to help with space farming research. The Growing Beyond Earth project involves middle and high school students working with Fairchild Botanical Garden to grow candidate plants for astronaut food. Volunteers have also tested chili pepper varieties for space growth, according to NASA.
Participation requires only a love of science, not any specific citizenship. Other NASA projects focus on space weather. Space Umbrella asks volunteers to sort data from the Magnetosphere Multiscale (MMS) mission to analyze solar storms and radiation risks.
The Open Science Data Repository Analysis Working Groups need volunteers to interpret data from living-in-space experiments. HamSCI allows ham radio operators to set up personal weather stations to study the ionosphere. Specific results from these initiatives are not publicly detailed, and exact volunteer numbers remain unknown.
Time commitments vary by project.