Watch as astronauts eat space-grown lettuce for the first time

It was the first time people have eaten food cultivated in space.

Crewmembers on the ISS have harvested their very first vegetable crop that was grown completely in space.

NASA announced a few days ago that astronauts on the global Space Station will for the first time get a taste of lettuce that wasn’t grown on Earth.

The romaine lettuce was harvested in an expandable “Veggie” unit, where seedlings from Earth grew from root-mat “pillows” under LED lights. But if we’re going to live on Mars one day, we’re going to have to figure out how to grow our own food off-Earth.

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.

In what may be the most historic salad in the history of mankind, worldwide Space Station crew members on Monday sampled some of the red romaine lettuce from the orbiting greenhouse – paired with oil and vinegar, of course.

Once the seeds were placed in soil and fertilizer, an irrigation system sent water through the bottom of the plants in order to provide the plants the necessary nutrients, despite the lack of gravity.

It’s not like the astronauts are guinea pigs for the Veggie system: experiments were conducted in Arizona before the first pillows were activated on the station in May 2014.

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

Astronauts will clean the lettuce with citric acid wipes before they eat half of the produce.

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.

A second set was planted last month and is about to be eaten.

The purple/pinkish hue surrounding the plants is the result of a combination of the red and blue lights which by design emit more light than the green LEDs. “It also could be used by astronauts for recreational gardening activities during deep space missions”.

“Plants potentially could serve as a countermeasure for long-duration exploration missions”.