NASA recently shared the latest photos of what they are calling the “Little Garden” on the International Space Station (ISS). A few of the astronauts aboard the space station can be seen in the photos. For a few years, NASA has been trying to conduct a few experiments on the ISS. The latest of the experiments was launched in January this year. In November 2020, the SpaceX Crew-1 manned spacecraft arrived at the ISS with NASA astronauts, including Michael Hopkins.
Hopkins’ arrival on the ISS marked an important day for NASA as Hopkins, since then, has been engaged with conducting two experiments involving plants. The experiments are called VEG-03I and VEG-O3J. The first of experiment was a hugely popular and successful one. With the VEG-03I, NASA was able to transplant plants into space. The second of those experiments took the study further and was mainly concerned with seeding the seeds available on the Kennedy Space Center in orbit.
NASA has shared the results of the experiments. According to NASA, lettuce is grown from seed film and transplanted crops were harvested on February 2. After the completion of the first two experiments, Hopkins started two new experiments called VEG-03K and VEG-03L.
According to NASA, since then, Hopkins has been working on plant experiments on the space station – including harvesting crops grown in space. One of the experiments involved a new “space crop”-the Kennedy Space Center called it a “steak plant” because of its taste. The other involves growing a crop called extra-dwarf cabbage.
This will not only enable astronauts to get access to eat fresh vegetables but will also contribute towards solving problems related to potential future manned missions. This is the latest result of many plant-based experiments on the ISS, some of which have produced leaves and vegetables for astronauts to eat.
