“There is evidence that supports fresh foods, such as tomatoes, blueberries and red lettuce are a good source of antioxidants”, Ray Wheeler, lead for Advanced Life Support activities in the Exploration Research and Technology Programs Office at Kennedy Space Centre, said.
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NASA will broadcast the harvest and first taste Monday afternoon starting at 11:30 p.m. EDT on NASA TV.
NASA said that the idea behind the out-of-this-world fare is to provide future astronauts with sustainable food supplements especially for long-distance trips, like to Mars.
The anticipation is high.
The current crop, activated by Scott Kelly as part of his full year in space, were started on July 8 and grew for 33 days before being harvested.
The lettuce were grown for 33 days, harvested and returned to Earth in October 2014.
NASA astronauts at the worldwide Space Station had a momentous-and fresh-lunch on Monday.
First on the space-vegetable menu is red romaine lettuce.
Called the Veg-01, the experiment aims to “study the in-orbit function and performance of the plant growth facility and its rooting ‘pillows, ‘ which contain the seeds”, according to a NASA press release. That is, there isn’t much of it coming from the Sun, and there’s no atmosphere to speak of to capture it. To mitigate that, Veggie started with red and blue LED lights, which are efficient in giving plants the energy they need. The red and blue wavelengths help the plant to grow, while the green LEDS help the plants to look more like edible food than purple plants.
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Astronauts will clean the lettuce with citric acid wipes before they eat half of the produce. The other half of the produce will be packaged, frozen and sent back to Earth at a later date where it will be analyzed by scientists. “Having fresh food like these available in space could have a positive impact on people’s moods and could provide some protection against radiation in space“. “I think that plant systems will become important components of any long-duration exploration scenario”.
