Kennedy Space Centre, June 9 — NASA astronaut Steve Swanson is scheduled to harvest red Romaine lettuce grown inside the International Space Station tomorrow. The plants won’t be eaten, but they will be sent back to Earth in September for testing. If the experiment is successful, it will lead to subsequent batches of lettuce later this year, which would be the first food NASA has ever grown in space.
The Vegetable Production System that made this possible, nicknamed “VEGGIE”, includes a mat — for the plants’ roots to take hold in — with six small kevlar-lined plant “pillows” on top of it. Each pillow contains seeds, controlled-release fertiliser pellets, and a clay mixture, designed to allow oxygen and water to reach the plants’ roots as they grow.
Water is injected directly into the pillows in order to stimulate germination.
Of the six pillows planted, only five germinated, with several sprouting multiple seeds.
Swanson will freeze the plants and swab them to sample any bacteria present. The swabs and frozen plants will be tested after they’re sent back to Earth in September, when Swanson and two Russian astronauts currently aboard the space station are scheduled to return.
If the tests go well, astronauts will germinate extra pillows of romaine seeds and add the fresh vegetable to their diets. — Reuters
