Space Grown Lettuce Just As Safe Earth Grown Says NASA Marking A New Food Era In Space

Maybe by the time you get to visit space, you may just eat the home-grown food there. An experiment carried out on the International Space Station (ISS) has indicated that not exclusively can the vegetable be grown in space, yet in addition that it’s similarly as nutritious as the ones developed on earth developed on Earth. That is using lettuce for example.

This came on the heels of lengthy missions by astronauts who before now had to pack quite a large amount of food supplies. The problem is that no matter how much you preserve these earths originated food, quality will depreciate over time hence the need to explore alternative ways of growing and eating fresh food in space.

Space explorers and scientists alike gave growing red romaine lettuce a shot on the space station. This was carried out over the past several years but in 2015 there was a breakthrough when astronauts were able to eat a historic lettuce-based meal in the same year.

A portion of that lettuce was kept and brought back to Earth for examination, with the aftereffects of the exploration as of late published in the Frontiers in Plant Science journal.

The report was put together by NASA’s Christina Khodadad and Gioia Massa and in it they take note of how a group of scientists likewise grew the same kind of lettuce on Earth in same conditions as those on the space station. For that they had to use LED lights and an exceptional watering system, and in a similar temperature and moistness levels — so it could look at the outcomes as far as quality as the space station. So basically, they simulated the space station conditions on earth.

Speaking to Newsweek, the NASA representatives said “Right now we cannot guarantee that we will have a diet to meet the needs of the crew for these longer, deep space missions, so one potential solution will be to supplement the packaged diet with fresh produce. “This [space-grown lettuce] will provide additional vitamins and other nutrients, flavors, textures and variety to the packaged diet. Growing plants may also help with menu fatigue and provide psychological benefits when astronauts are far from home. In the long term, if we ever want to have space colonization, growth of crops will be crucial for establishing any level of sustainability and self-sufficiency.

This brings us closer not just to safely growing food space which is a breakthrough in itself but that this could be replicated on Mars, another planet humans are currently exploring for life. The researched said “In addition to providing food, plants may also play a role in future Life Support Systems needed for long-duration missions. Plants generate oxygen as well as remove and fix carbon dioxide, which is critical in closed systems like the ISS or future moon/Mars facilities.”

The lettuce was tested for harmful bacteria considering E. coli and Salmonella outbreaks from some vegetables, they were found to be largely safe for human consumption.