Slashdot Mirror
Growing Vegetables In Space, NASA Astronauts Tweet Their Lunch
An anonymous reader writes: Astronauts on the International Space Station got their first taste of space-grown lettuce today. It took the astronauts about an hour to harvest and prepare the lettuce both plain and with oil and vinegar. The Times reports: "The vegetable experiment had been a long-awaited harvest for the astronauts, who say that the ability to grow and sustain crops in space may someday aid travelers on long space trips. Cultivating crops is seen as a critical step in the path to traveling to Mars, for instance. Before the harvest, the astronauts did what any sensible Earthling with a Wi-Fi connection would do: They celebrated lunch in an exclusive locale by tweeting a picture of the goods."
It took the astronauts about an hour to harvest and prepare the lettuce both plain and with oil and vinegar.
Sounds like they burned off more calories than they gained in this exercise.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
I imagine you're joking, but for those who don't know - the lettuce in the picture is a shade of pink due to specific wavelengths of lighting that provides the plants with the ideal amount of "solar" energy, while avoiding providing any stressful wavelengths that require the plant to shed heat. In actuality, the plants often look almost black under that light, because they absorb most of it. Under regular sunlight, plants look green because that wavelength is reflected back, unused.
It may look unnatural, but it's surprisingly efficient.
Lettuce has almost no nutritional value. They should be experimenting with beans or root crops like carrots.
Although beans might get an astronaut to move faster in zero gravity from the expanding gas, the smell left behind in the cabin will probably get them cast out of an air lock without a space suit.
Spirulina seems like an obvious choice. It could be grown in tubes external to the station. It would have a side benefit of filtering water, removing waste and providing a supply of oxygen.