Over the weekend, the results of a NASA study made their return to Earth, but it is still unknown if they would be good on a BLT sandwich. The “results” returning to Earth were tomatoes grown on the International Space Station.
The tomatoes returned aboard SpaceX’s uncrewed Dragon cargo spacecraft, which touched down in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Tampa, Florida, on Saturday afternoon. The Dragon spacecraft was completing its 27th contracted cargo resupply mission to the ISS, NASA shared in a blog.
After resupplying the ISS, an estimated 4,300 pounds of valuable scientific experiments and other cargo were loaded onto the craft to be returned to Earth. Among the experiments were the tomatoes which were grown aboard the space station.
The tomatoes were grown through the Veg-05 experiment and will now be analyzed by scientists, according to the blog.
The dwarf tomatoes were grown in the station’s miniature greenhouse and produced three harvests for astronauts on days 90, 97, and 104. The tomatoes were frozen, along with water samples and swabs of the growth hardware, for scientists to examine.
The plants were originally planted last fall.
Scientists will be looking into the effects of light quality and fertilizer on fruit production, microbial safety, and nutritional value.
The information collected from the experiment will help the space agency in its future endeavors to embark on long-duration missions in outer space.
NASA says the ability to grow plants in space for fresh food has the added bonus of improving a space crew’s living experience, which will be vital to its future missions to our closest planet, Mars.
The results from the experiment could also be used on Earth for those who do not have access to gardens or as horticultural therapy for older people and people with disabilities.
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