Lettuce grown in space a ‘one giant leaf for mankind’

A greenhouse called Lada has been aboard the ISS since 2002 and has been used to study plant growth in microgravity for many years.

The space agency posted the video to YouTube on Monday, showing Expedition 44 astronauts Scott Kelly, Kjell Lindgren, and Kimiya Yui eating the lettuce grown in space, saying, “That’s awesome”.

“One of the things with flowers, let me point out, is that they’re going to see how these flowers pollinate in a zero gravity state, which is very important as well, because pollination for fruit and future things really need to happen”, he said.

According to NASA, this plant experiment (the entertainingly named Veg-01) started in May 2014; astronaut Steve Swanson watered and cared for the plants, which were placed in containers for them to take root in, known as “pillows”.

A Nasa test saw the crew of the global Space Station eat red romaine lettuce grown in a special farm.

 ” Having fresh food like these available in space could have a positive impact on people’s moods and also could provide some protection against radiation in space” said Dr Ray Wheeler, head of advanced life support activities at NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. Those plants were grown and taken back to earth for safety testing, according to Jeffs.

The astronauts will eat half of their lettuce crop, setting aside the rest to be packaged and frozen for analysis.

The lettuce was cleaned with citric acid-based food safe sanitizing wipes before it was eaten. NASA hopes that this Veg-01 experiment could be the first step toward creating self-sustaining food supplies for a trip to Mars or future deep-space missions. “But the quantity is limited and must be consumed quickly”, says Dr. Gioia Massa, the NASA scientist working on the vegetable project at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. They spent 33 days growing underneath red, green, and blue LEDs, which provide light for photosynthesis and helped to give the lettuce a more natural color.

Astronaut Scott Kelly reportedly planted seeds in the growing medium, the plant “pillows”, on July 8. “The green LEDs help to enhance the human visual perception of the plants, but they don’t put out as much light as the reds and blues”.