Dinner that’s out of this world: Astronauts eat the first space-grown salad

You know space food — prepackaged and freeze-dried — it’s not the most appetizing way to get your nutrition. But on August 10 at 11:15 a.m. EDT, astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) took one small step to fresh food among the stars.

It took the crew 33 days to grow enough red romaine lettuce on the ISS in order to make a small salad. Grown under red, blue, and green LED lights, the astronauts ate half of the salad up in orbit, and sent the rest back down to Earth for further testing, though a test for bacterial contamination showed that the food was safe to eat. 

It took 33 days to grow enough romaine lettuce to make a salad on the ISS. Image: NASA.

So why the hype over a few leaves of lettuce? It turns out, farming in space is quite complicated, and the first issue stems from water. On Earth, gravity pulls water down toward the roots, but in space, it can ball up in the corner of a pot and leave the roots to fend for themselves. But thanks to the Veggie project’s manager, Trent Smith and his team, there’s a “pillow” of aerated clay, to which you add water, that helps simplify the process. The clay simply provides structure for the roots to spread out in zero gravity.

And then of course, we all know plants need fresh air to breathe. Here on Earth, it’s the wind’s job to keep fresh air moving, but on the ISS, multiple fans have been set up to circulate the rather stagnant air. 

Astronaut Scott Kelly took a selfie with the space lettuce. Image: NASA.

Finally, since space is dark, there’s an issue with light, which plants need in order to survive and thrive. But since the ISS whips around the Earth so fast, there’s a new sunrise every 90 minutes, so for a plant who’s got roots on the third planet from the sun, that’s just confusing. Thanks to artificial lighting, the orbiting space lettuce stays on its Earthly cycle.

Now, on to the best part: how did the hungry astronauts aboard the ISS decide to take this memorable salad? The crew went with a simple balsamic dressing and reported that the space greens tasted out of this world.

“That's awesome, tastes good,” astronaut Kjell Lindgren told mission control in Houston.

Watch the video below to see the first bite.

Though an exciting moment, this wasn’t the first time astronauts had grown lettuce in space. Last year, an equal amount of tasty greens were successfully produced, but they were frozen and returned to Earth for analysis, though Smith is certain the crew at the time might have sneaked a bite.

There are also plans to harvest cabbage, cherry tomatoes, and even potatoes aboard the ISS, as we take one giant leap to greater, edible space accomplishments.