Humans have introduced a new form of life to Outer space Friday on behalf of NASA Astronauts harvested Chile’s first pepper aboard the International Space Station.
Chili pepper seeds hatch in spacial station On a SpaceX refueling mission in June and immediately deployed by NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough.
“Finally, I made my best tacos: beef fajitas, sun-dried tomato and artichoke and HATCH CHILE,” astronaut Megan MacArthur wrote in a tweet.
Astronauts have access to a variety of frozen and takeout meals that are replenished regularly, but learning how to grow fresh produce millions of miles from Earth will be key to longer missions.
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“The challenge is to be able to feed crews in low Earth orbit and then support explorers during future missions outside of low Earth orbit to destinations including the Moon, as part of the Artemis program, and eventually Mars,” Matt Romain, explained the principal investigator of NASA’s Plant Habitat-04 experiment.
“We’re restricted to crops that don’t need extensive storage or processing.”
Growing peppers can be beneficial not only for the physical health of astronauts, but also for their mental health, according to Rommen.
NASA astronauts planted seeds for Chili Hatch in an advanced plant habitat, a grow room equipped with more than 180 crew-controlled sensors and LEDs at Kennedy Space Center.
A similar room, known as the Vegetable Production System, has been producing crops for about six years, including flowers of lettuce, cabbage, turnip and zinnia.
A Kennedy Space Center team planted a pepper control group under nearly identical conditions on Earth to see if microgravity and other factors in space affected the growth of hatched peppers.
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“The seasoning of pepper is determined by the environmental conditions of cultivation,” explained Lachelle Spencer, head of the scientific team for the PH-04 project. “The combination of microgravity, light quality, temperature and moisture in the root zone will affect the flavor, so it will be interesting to see how the fruit will grow, ripen and taste.”
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