Space Veggies
Last week, NASA astronauts at the International Space Station bit some freshly grown radishes that they had grown into orbit.
The radishes, which happened to be a New Year’s treat for the ISS crew, were the first vegetables to be grown and eaten in orbit, apart from some leafy vegetables, according to United Press International. The meal is a promising development in NASA’s continued efforts to grow food in space, resulting in long-term orbit stays and more than a more viable and sustainable effort.
The fate of the radishes was not always clear. In early December, a NASA spokesman did not want to tell Futurism whether the astronauts were allowed to take any radishes.
Cromch
Astronauts on the ISS usually do not get the fruits of their agricultural labor. While NASA scientists have been figuring out for years how to grow or prepare food in orbit, the food is almost always frozen and sent to Earth for analysis, whether it is vegetables or cookies. Even now, 10 of the 19 radishes have gone to Earth and the ISS crew members have eaten the remaining nine.
But eating food grown on the ISS is not unheard of. The NASA astronauts did this for the first time in 2015 by lowering some of the red Roman lettuce they grew in orbit. That lettuce, which was examined later in 2020, could hardly be distinguished from plants grown on the ground, and it gave hope for the future of orbital agriculture.
Refreshment time
The successful radish experiment is a good sign for the future of space travel, but in the more immediate term it is also good news for crew members who can almost never eat fresh produce, according to UPI.
Karl Hasenstein, the lead researcher for the project, says UPI that astronaut Kate Rubins ‘said that the radishes were just as delicious as she grew in her garden.’
READ MORE: Astronauts eat the first radishes grown in space by 2020 [UPI]
More about space food: Astronauts have only grown meat in space for the first time