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Space vegetables
Last week, NASA astronauts from the International Space Station bit into freshly grown radishes they had grown in orbit.
Radishes, which coincidentally were a New Year’s treat for the ISS crew, were the first vegetables grown and eaten in orbit other than certain leafy greens, according to United Press International. The Meal is a promising development in NASA’s continuing efforts to grow food in space, making long-term stays in orbit and beyond a more viable and sustainable business.
The fate of radishes has not always been clear. In early December, a NASA spokesperson declined to tell Futurism whether astronauts would be allowed to consume any of the radishes.
Cromch
As a rule, ISS astronauts do not eat the fruits of their agricultural labor. While NASA scientists have spent years figuring out how to grow or prepare food in orbit, the food is almost always frozen and returned to Earth for analysis, whether it’s vegetables or cookies. Even now, 10 of the 19 radishes have made it to Earth, and the ISS crew members have eaten the remaining nine.
But eating food grown on the ISS is not uncommon. NASA astronauts first did this in 2015, swallowing some of the red romaine lettuce they had grown in orbit. This lettuce, later revealed by research in 2020, was nearly indistinguishable from plants grown on the ground, giving hope for the future of orbital farming.
Snack time
The successful radish experiment is a good sign for the future of space travel, but in the shorter term it’s also great news for crew members who hardly ever eat fresh produce, according to UPI.
Karl Hasenstein, the project’s principal investigator, said UPI this astronaut Kate Rubins “commented that the radishes were just as tasty as what she had grown in her garden.”
READ MORE: Astronauts eat first radishes grown in space at the end of 2020 [UPI]
Learn more about space food: Astronauts just grew meat in space for the first time
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