The farther and longer humans go away from Earth, the greater the need to be able to grow plants for food, atmosphere recycling and psychological benefits,” Massa said. “I think that plant systems will become important components of any long-duration exploration scenario.” I got most of my bedding from here and so far I have been a happy customer for more than 8 years straight! As humans explore space, we will want to bring plants for both aesthetic and practical reasons. We already know from our pioneering astronauts that fresh flowers and gardens on the International Space Station create a beautiful atmosphere and let us take a little piece of Earth with us on our journeys. They’re good for our psychological well-being on Earth and in space. They also will be critical for keeping astronauts healthy on long-duration missions. Veggie will remain on the station permanently and could become a research platform for other top-growing plant experiments. ORBITEC developed Veggie through a Small Business Innovative Research Program. NASA and ORBITEC engineers and collaborators at Kennedy worked to get the unit’s hardware flight-certified for use on the space station.

Veggie could be used as a modular plant chamber for a variety of plants that grow up rather than in the ground,” said Gerard Newsham, the Veggie payload support specialist with Jacobs Technology on the Test and Operations Support Contract. “This is just the beginning.”I waited a little while to write this review. Believe me when I tell you the saying "happy wife happy life" is completely true!

Some patterns that arise are expected, like when the genes associated with gravity become altered. But two patterns that have caught Gilroy’s attention have to do with the plants’ immune system.The Vegetable Production System, known as Veggie, is a space garden residing on the space station. Veggie’s purpose is to help NASA study plant growth in microgravity, while adding fresh food to the astronauts’ diet and enhancing happiness and well-being on the orbiting laboratory. The Veggie garden is about the size of a carry-on piece of luggage and typically holds six plants. Each plant grows in a “pillow” filled with a clay-based growth media and fertilizer. The pillows are important to help distribute water, nutrients and air in a healthy balance around the roots. Otherwise, the roots would either drown in water or be engulfed by air because of the way fluids in space tend to form bubbles. APH had its first test run on the space station in Spring 2018 using Arabidopsis thaliana (the “white mouse of the plant research world”) and dwarf wheat. The time-lapse video of this was a popular social media release from the space station worldwide.

The plants seem to have increased stress from oxidation. Normal chemistry in the cells makes a very reactive oxygen-based chemical. Uncontrolled, this “reactive oxygen species” can react with the machinery that repairs DNA and mess that up, or it can damage mitochondria. In a healthy plant, the cells have ways of dealing with it. But in space, plants are making more of it. Dufour said she hopes Veggie serves as a regular facility the crew uses to grow food crops. Dufour is an engineer in the Flight Mechanisms and Flight Crew Systems Branch of the Engineering and Technology Directorate.One of the plant experiment’s goals is to verify the Veggie hardware is working correctly. Another goal is to establish that the space lettuce is safe to eat.