NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough checks Hatch chile vegetation rising on the Worldwide House Station earlier this yr.
NASA
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NASA
NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough checks Hatch chile vegetation rising on the Worldwide House Station earlier this yr.
NASA
Outer house simply acquired just a little extra scrumptious.
Astronauts aboard the Worldwide House Station had the pleasure of eating on house tacos final weekend: tacos topped with inexperienced chile that was really grown in house. As a part of NASA’s Plant Habitat-04 investigation, scientists started rising hatch chile — a kind of pepper present in New Mexico’s Hatch Valley — aboard the ISS in July in an effort to know extra about “plant-microbe interactions” in house, NASA said.
Astronauts have grown different crops, akin to lettuce and radishes, in house earlier than. However peppers are harder to develop in house as a result of they take a comparatively very long time to germinate and bear fruit, based on the NASA launch.
That is the primary time NASA has grown peppers in house, and astronauts lastly acquired to style the fruits of their labor on Friday earlier than amassing knowledge on the pink and inexperienced peppers that have been harvested. Astronaut Megan McArthur shared photos of what she referred to as her “finest house tacos but,” which have been made utilizing fajita beef, rehydrated tomatoes and artichokes, and the hatch chile grown on the ISS.
“Friday Feasting!” she wrote on Twitter.
Friday Feasting! After the harvest, we acquired to style pink and inexperienced chile. Then we stuffed out surveys (acquired to have the information! 😁). Lastly, I made my finest house tacos but: fajita beef, rehydrated tomatoes & artichokes, and HATCH CHILE! https://t.co/pzvS5A6z5u pic.twitter.com/fJ8yLZuhZS
— Megan McArthur (@Astro_Megan) October 29, 2021
The chile pepper experiment is a part of a bid to broaden the variety of crops that astronauts can develop in house throughout future missions, NASA defined in a July release.
“The problem is the power to feed crews in low-Earth orbit, after which to maintain explorers throughout future missions past low-Earth orbit to locations together with the Moon, as a part of the Artemis program, and finally to Mars,” stated Matt Romeyn, principal investigator for NASA’s Plant Habitat-04 experiment. “We’re restricted to crops that do not want storage, or intensive processing.”
It seems to be like astronauts might be able to snack on recent inexperienced chile on future missions. Name it one big chunk for mankind.
