One Small Step for Veggies: Astronauts Eat Lettuce Grown in Space

William Jeffs, a spokesman for NASA Johnson Space Center, told USA TODAY, seeds of the red romaine seeds were planted on July 8 on board the ISS where a small greenhouse has been set using LEDs called “Veggie”.

“Bon appetit!” Scott Kelly, the station’s US commander, bid Kjell Lindgren and Kimiya Yui, his fellow astronauts, as they each took a leaf.

Since water can not be poured in space, a special irrigation system delivers moisture to the plant pillows from below.

The purple romaine lettuce was grown in a particular plant-growing field referred to as a Veggie unit that was constructed by Orbital Applied sciences Company in Madison, Wisconsin, and was flown to area aboard the SpaceX Dragon cargo ship.

“There is evidence that supports the idea that fresh foods such as tomatoes, blueberries and red lettuce are a good source of antioxidants”, said NASA scientist Dr Ray Wheeler.

Some fresh foods are already on the menu at the worldwide Space Station, but a NASA scientist says crew members must wait for shipments of foods like apples and carrots, and then consume them quickly.

Veg-01 forms a critical part of NASA’s Journey to Mars, enabling crew to grow and eat their own food on long-duration exploration missions.

The plants grew under red, green and blue LED lights. The other half will be packed and frozen, storing them at the station until it can be transported back to Earth for further analysis.

Fresh vegetables and fruits could be a welcomed addition to an astronaut’s diet since they’re normally forced to eat packaged food in space.

Before dining on the leafy vegetable, astronauts will first clean the heads of lettuce with citric acid-based sanitizing wipes.

A number of technologies NASA has explored for these space-farming experiments also have returned to Earth over the years and found their way onto the market. But NASA needs to figure out how to grow food on spacecraft – and on other planets – for future deep space missions such as the one planned to Mars.

“Crew tastes red romaine lettuce with oil & vinegar for #NASAVeggie study and #JourneyToMars”, tweeted the worldwide Space Station’s Twitter account. But until now, none of the plants grown in space have been eaten there.