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lettuce

Every fleck of food consumed on the International Infinite Station has always been delivered via costly manned and robotic missions. That will offset irresolute, every bit the ISS crew accept harvested their first edible crop of lettuce grown aboard the station. Past plants were only for research purposes, but they got to eat some of it this fourth dimension. This could be a large step toward a more sustainable future for humans in space.

This harvest celebration is part of NASA's Veg-01 experiment, which aims to test tillage methods that could be used to assistance future astronauts survive long periods abroad from Earth. The official tweets for the ceremonious snacking are conspicuously tagged with #JourneyToMars. Nosotros are also informed that the astronauts were able to liven upwards their romaine lettuce with oil and vinegar. That'due south nice, as eating dry salad all the way to Mars doesn't sound very enjoyable.

The Veg-01 plan was kicked off a little over a year agone when the seeds that would eventually grow into today's snack were sent up to the ISS aboard a SpaceX Dragon vessel. The seeds are packaged in pocket-sized "pillows" that ensure the seeds tin can germinate in microgravity. The lettuce plants were successfully grown on the ground using this system before existence sent upwards, but no 1 knew for certain if the plants would thrive and be safe to eat in space.

The first crop of plants grown on the ISS were sent back down to Earth last yr for safety testing and analysis. The recently harvested crop was planted in July, simply the seeds had been stored on the station for more than a yr. That was also function of the experiment — it proved that the seed pillows were however viable after being in space for all that time.

Space missions are all almost efficiency. The less mass you lot accept to acquit to sustain a crew, the more fuel and equipment you tin can conduct. Correct now if you were to transport a mission to Mars, you'd have to include all the food needed past the crew to survive the trip there and (presumably) back. If, however, the crew could abound some calories during the mission, that would vastly improve efficiency. Seeds are much lighter than fully grown plants, afterwards all.

NASA hopes to send a manned mission to Mars in the 2030s, but a great deal of research needs to be done before undertaking such an effort. Growing the beginning edible food in space is a single (but important) piece of the puzzle.