NASA is planning to grow lettuce in space under pink LED lamps on the International Space Station. It said that in all, lettuce, Swiss chard, radishes, and Chinese cabbage will be grown.
The project, called the Vegetable Production System--VEGGIE for short--will launch to the station via SpaceX’s Dragon capsule, a press release from NASA reads.
“Our hope is that even though VEGGIE is not a highly complex plant growth apparatus, it will allow the crew to rapidly grow vegetables using a fairly simple nutrient and water delivery approach,” said Howard Levine,who heads NASA’s Kennedy Space Center International Space Station Research Office.
It costs thousands upon thousands of dollars to send food into space.
“VEGGIE could be used to produce faster-growing species of plants, such as lettuce or radishes, bok choy or Chinese cabbage, or even bitter leafy greens” postdoctoral fellow Gioia Massa said. “Crops like tomatoes, peas or beans in which you'd have to have a flower and set fruit would take a little longer than a 28-day cycle.”
NASA noted that fresh produce only comes to the ISS only a few times per year.
“When the resupply ships get up there, the fresh produce gets eaten almost immediately,” Massa said.
