All right, so we’ve got lettuce over there, peppers, now we’ve got tomatoes—looks
like all the makings of a salad.
Can I eat one?
No.
We’re checked in here at Kennedy Space Center, our nation’s leading multi-user spaceport.
And we’re getting our passport stamped at the plant research lab.
I'm here with plant scientist Gioia Massa.
So Gioia, what role does Kennedy Space Center play in research and food production in space?
Kennedy is the plant center for the agency, which means we coordinate research that's funded
by NASA and universities and we also do research here.
And we’re doing research on food production methods and types of crops to grow to feed
the crew on future exploration missions, and also strategies for hardware development.
And we do develop some of the hardware here or we work with companies, like the Veggie and
the Plant Habitat hardware that’s on the International Space Station.
So we do a lot of work on that hardware and the other types of hardware that are coming
for the future.
So, Gioia, what is Veggie?
Veggie is a small plant-growth chamber that we have on the International Space Station.
We actually have two Veggie units up there right now.
And it’s kind of like an astronaut garden in some ways.
It uses LED lights and fans to move the air around, but everything else in the environment
is really input by the space station.
The temperature, the atmosphere and the humidity are controlled by the space station.
So, Gioia, why is it important to grow produce in space?
The astronauts have a really good packaged diet.
They have over 200 foods and a fair amount of variety.
But over time, that diet will slowly degrade if it’s stored, and the quality will decrease,
and also the nutrients will decrease.
Some of the vitamins will break down.
And for the International Space Station this isn’t really a big deal.
They get fresh food very often.
But when we’re on a long-duration mission to Mars, the food may have to be sent ahead
of time, and it may be very old by the time the astronauts get to eat it.
So we want to use produce to supplement this nutrition.
They can get fresh, bioavailable nutrients from the plants that they eat, and this will
help give them a balanced diet.
OK, so Gioia, how do we grow plants in space when you’re dealing with microgravity and
no sunlight?
How does that work?
We control the environment of the plants so that it mimics the environment that we have
on Earth as much as we can.
And so we’ll add LED lights, light-emitting diodes, and we’ll put them in colors that
the plants can easily utilize for growth.
Watering is the biggest challenge that we have.
And so we have to provide both water and oxygen to the plant roots.
Plant roots breathe like we do.
And without gravity, that becomes really difficult.
Water behaves kind of strangely; it forms blobs and it coats surfaces.
And water and air don’t mix well.
And so we’re looking at a lot of different ways to water plants in space, to try and get
not too little water, not too much water.
We don’t want to drown the plants and we don’t want to dry them out.
We think with a little bit of gravity, like what you might have on the Moon or Mars, maybe
the fluids will behave much more like they do on Earth and we’ll be able to water plants
more normally.
So, Gioia, what plants have been grown in Veggie so far on the International Space Station?
We’ve done a lot of work in Veggie with what we call leafy green crops.
This includes three different kinds of lettuce, a Chinese cabbage variety, Mizuno mustard,
and most recently, a red Russian kale.
And they’ve all done pretty well.
We’ve had some challenges with the watering.
We’ve also grown flowers in Veggie.
We grew the zinnias, and this was astronauts Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren who grew these.
You need flowering for producing things like tomatoes and peppers, the small fruits that
we want to grow.
Okay, so are we going to be growing potatoes, like in “The Martian,” anytime soon?
Potatoes are a really good crop!
But on the International Space Station right now, we don’t have any way to cook anything.
They don’t even have a microwave.
So we really want to grow crops that you want to just grow and eat raw.
And raw potatoes don’t really appeal to most people.
All right, so I guess French fries and a freshly grilled cheeseburger are out, at least for
the astronauts right now.
But hopefully they’ll be able to enjoy a side salad soon.
Thank you so much, Gioia, for stamping our passport as we tour around Kennedy Space Center.
My pleasure.