Leafy greens grown on space station now on astronaut menu!

Of course, before the leafy greens are eaten, it will have to be washed using citric acid-based, food-safe sanitizing wipes. One half of the space bounty will be eaten fresh, while the other will be packaged, frozen, and shipped back to Earth for scientific analysis.

The rooting “pillows” of the system were activated and first watered in May a year ago. This is the batch of plants that will be harvested and consumed by astronauts aboard the ISS before being flown back down to Earth to be further studied. NASA also thinks that it is a nice way for the astronauts to always have part of the Earth with them, no matter where they are in the cosmos.

NASA told Congress on Wednesday that it will have to spend half a billion dollars to pay Russian Federation to fly astronauts to the global Space Station.

Green LEDs were added, too, to make plants green in color, and not purple as they would be if only red and blue LEDs had been used.

Herbs and salad leaves grown in disused World War II tunnels beneath London by a company Growing Underground uses hydroponic system and similar LED technology like Veggie to grow crops.

“I hope to see Veggie’s success as the first step in food production that will allow astronauts on the space station to enjoy fresh food and gain knowledge as we explore beyond low-Earth orbit”, says Brian Ornate, former Veggie project manager, as reported by NASA. The technology utilizes, among other space-adaptive techniques, growing “pillows” that provide the seeds with essential nutrients.

Whisky makers have also been interested in how microgravity can affect the aging process or change the taste of the alcohol.

“Microbiological food safety analysis looks very good on the first Veg-01 crop of romaine lettuce”, Massa said.

NASA believes that having fresh foods available to crew will have a variety of benefits.

Alexandra Whitmire, a Behavioral Health and Performance Research scientist for NASA, believes that having fresh vegetables aboard future space missions will have psychological benefits in addition to nutritional benefits.

Until now, ISS astronauts were only able to access a limited supply of fruit and vegetables, NASA Veggie scientist Dr Gioia Massa said.

“Plants potentially could serve as a countermeasure for long-duration exploration missions”. “We have upcoming experiments that will look at the impacts of light quality on crop yield, nutrition and flavour, both on Earth and in space“.