WASHINGTON: This week on the menu for astronauts aboard the International Space Station: a purplish-green sample of romaine lettuce, the first plant ever to be grown and eaten in space.
NASA’s plant experiment, called Veg-01, has been used to study the ability to produce crops while in-orbit over the last year, and scientists hope the result will be the chance for astronauts to be able to grow their own food in space during missions that take them far away from our planet — like to Mars.
Of course, growing food in a low-gravity environment with little sun or water is a bit more complicated than planting gardens here on Earth. Astronauts must grow the plant in rooting “pillows” containing the seeds. They are grown in a unit with a flat panel that gives off red, blue and green lights using LEDs — which are responsible for the plants purple hue.
The lettuce that the astronauts will eat Monday is the second batch grown on the space station. The first was sent back down to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida in October of last year, where it was analyzed for safety. Scientists at Kennedy gave the produce a thumbs up, and a second batch of lettuce was activated in July.
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