IT House reported on December 17 that after being lost in space for a year, the space tomatoes harvested by astronaut Frank Rubio on the International Space Station in 2022 were finally recovered, and not one, but two .
According to IT House, Rubio harvested these tomatoes on the International Space Station in 2022, and they were supposed to become delicious space meals for astronauts. However, since it is difficult to keep food fresh in the weightless environment of space, Rubio temporarily placed them in a bag, but they accidentally floated away and were never heard from again.
However, just last Thursday (December 14), NASA officials surprisingly announced that they had discovered these two lost space tomatoes in a space station cabin whose location was kept secret. "Although missing for nearly a year, the tomatoes are still intact and are only slightly dehydrated and deformed," NASA officials wrote in a statement. "Other than slight discoloration, there is no visible microbial or fungal growth."
Worth It Note that previous media reports stated that the missing tomatoes were from the VEG-05 project in 2023, but NASA clarified that they were actually the results of the 2022 eXposed Root On-Orbit Test System, which was designed to Explore the use of hydroponic and aeroponic technologies to grow plants in space to provide food sources for future space exploration missions.
Although Rubio has returned to Earth after a year-long space journey, he is still very excited about this unexpected discovery. NASA emphasized that growing food on the International Space Station is not only to satisfy the appetite of astronauts, but more importantly, to accumulate experience and technology for future moon and Mars exploration missions.
In addition to the XROOTS project, there are other ongoing experiments in growing food in space. For example, the VEG-05 project is testing growing dwarf tomatoes and other foods, while the latest Planet Habitat-03 project is the first attempt to grow plants on a space station for multiple generations to study the impact of the space environment on plant genes.
In addition to food supply, space cultivation has other important significance. "The benefits of growing plants in space go beyond that," NASA officials added, "Astronauts report that spending time gardening has psychological benefits, improves the quality of their space life, and boosts morale." "
