Astronauts grow vegetables in space
By Diego Flammini, Farms.com
When orbiting the Earth 400km (248mi) away, fresh produce can be hard to come by.
Or at least it was.
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station enjoyed taking a bite out of red romaine lettuce, the first time any food has been grown, harvested and eaten in space.
"Growing food to supplement and minimize the food that must be carried to space will be increasingly important on long-duration missions," said Shane Topham, an engineer with Space Dynamics Laboratory at Utah State University in Logan. "We also are learning about the psychological benefits of growing plants in space -- something that will become more important as crews travel farther from Earth."
The experiment, known as Lada Validating Vegetable Production Unit – Plants, Protocols, Procedures and Requirements (Lada) began in 2002 and was mainly used to study plant growth in space.
On July 8th, 2015, the romaine lettuce was planted using a growth system called Veggie and was harvested 33 days later after consistent watering.
Veggie is a collapsible system that shines red and blue LEDs onto pre-made seed “pillows”. It produced crops in 2014 but they had to be sent back to Earth for testing to ensure they were safe to eat.
Before eating the current crops, astronauts must first wipe them down with sanitizing wipes.
NASA is now in the process of sending flowers to the ISS for more experimentation that could help astronauts and people on Earth.
“They’re going to see how the flowers pollinate within a zero gravity state and study that,” said Paul Zamprelli from Orbitec. “(It’s) very important as well because of the pollination for fruit and future things.”
Zamprelli said countries like Dubai, who because of their climate rely heavily on importing most of their produce, could benefit from a Veggie-like system because it would allow them to make use of their sunlight and water in a controlled environment.
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