Fwd: Astronauts might eat KSC’s next space lettuce crop

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From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: June 22, 2015 at 9:47:16 AM CDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Astronauts might eat KSC's next space lettuce crop

 

 

Astronauts might eat KSC's next space lettuce crop

James Dean, FLORIDA TODAY 12:10 a.m. EDT June 21, 2015

 

(Photo: MALCOLM DENEMARK/FLORIDA TODAY)

 

More seeds will soon rocket to the world's ultimate raised bed garden: the International Space Station.

And the next time astronauts orbiting 250 miles up harvest homegrown heads of red romaine lettuce, under guidance from Kennedy Space Center scientists, they may be allowed to eat some.

Extensive laboratory analysis of the first space-grown lettuce crop produced by the KSC experiment nicknamed "Veggie" found no salad stoppers.

"Everything looks pretty good to eat," said Gioia Massa, the project's lead scientist. "The produce actually looked pretty similar to what you get at the grocery store."

Eighteen seed pillows are among the more than 5,000 pounds of supplies that a SpaceX Dragon capsule will fly to the station following a planned liftoff from Cape Canaveral at 10:21 a.m. next Sunday.

They include more "outredgeous" lettuce and a variety of Chinese cabbage, called Tokyo bekana, being flown for the first time.

The pillows will be placed in a small growth chamber that glows a distinctive pink when its LED lights are turned on inside the station's Columbus module, which crews have dubbed "Club Columbus."

The bellows-like apparatus, due to be replaced by a more advanced plant habitat in 2017, is NASA's first step in learning how to grow food astronauts will need for longer exploration missions farther from Earth.

On the space station, where crews for months eat mostly pre-packaged food with a shelf life of years, the prospect of fresh food is just as tantalizing.

"It would be a huge difference," said NASA astronaut Steve Swanson, who harvested the first Veggie lettuce crop in orbit last year. "One, psychologically, having fresh food is a huge plus there. And two, I think having fresh food in your system just makes you feel better overall."

Swanson said he would have loved to toss up a garden salad with tomatoes and other veggies along with lettuce, enjoying not only their flavor and nutrition but texture.

"You miss the crunch, the crispiness of a fresh salad," he said. "That's part of it, besides just the nutrients you get in fresh vegetables."

But he said choices of space crops also had to consider "bang for your buck" — the ability to grow large quantities in a limited space.

Enter Tokyo bekana.

NASA spent a year studying various leafy greens for their nutritional value, growth rate and yield, and resistance to microbes — a key reason why red romaine lettuce made the first cut. Scientists looked at types of spinach and lettuce, Swiss chard, Chinese cabbage and bitter and beet greens.

The Tokyo bekans grew vigorously, had good nutritional content and also won top scores in taste tests by a volunteer panel at Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Future missions may grow tomato plants, more challenging because of their larger size, in the growth chamber.

"It's a salad machine, at some point," said Trent Smith, the Veggie project manager at KSC.

But first, NASA had to make sure there was nothing "weird" in its initial batch of space lettuce, Massa said.

Tests have confirmed that. But the agency is still hashing out standards for how to handle fresh produce in orbit. Current protocol would have astronauts wipe off lettuce leaves with a food-safe sanitizing wipe before munching.

"We just want to make sure they don't get food poisoning in space," said Massa. "I don't think there's any chance of that."

There's no certain timeline yet for when the next plants will be grown, or when they might be eaten.

Swanson said he had no concerns about the first crop, but understood the precautions being taken.

He found just tending and harvesting the lettuce fun, and psychologically valuable on a six-month expedition, "to have something to take care of and that grows and that needs your help."

When it came time to harvest the three lettuce plants that Veggie grew successfully in microgravity — one was particularly bushy — his crewmates gathered around for what Swanson said was "a little bit of a momentous occasion."

Massa through station cameras saw Swanson use scissors to snip two of the three plants that were wrapped in foil and frozen for the trip home to KSC labs.

Swanson would not confirm or deny if any nibbles occurred off camera.

"We were not allowed to eat it," he joked, "but it tasted great."

Contact Dean at 321-242-3668 or jdean@floridatoday.com.

 

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