Astronauts aboard the International Space Station have successfully grown a flower to a full bloom for the first time outside our Earth.
Scott Kelly, of the U.S. Space Agency (NASA) said on Tuesday in Washington that a zinnia has flowered in the microgravity environment of the orbiting laboratory.
“First ever flower grown in space makes its debut.”Yes, there are other life forms in space.
Kelly explained that zinnias were chosen not for their beauty but to “help scientists understand how plants flower and grow in microgravity”.
NASA further explained in an article that previously, other plants such as wheat and romaine lettuce had been grown in space.
It, however, disclosed that when a batch of lettuce was harvested in August on the space station, NASA astronauts were even allowed to eat the fruits of their labor for the first time.
Trent Smith, NASA’s Veggie Project Manager, said growing zinnias seemed to post more challenges to in-orbit gardeners than growing a vegetative crop such as lettuce.
He said the zinnia plant was very different from lettuce, because it was more sensitive to environmental parameters and light characteristics.
“It has longer growth duration between 60 and 80 days. Thus, it is a more difficult plant to grow.
Smith said just more than two weeks into their growth period, astronauts noted that water was seeping out of some of the crop’s leaves, a condition that occurs when a plant was experiencing high humidity.
“To fix it, they adjusted the speed of the station’s veggie facility fan from low to high to dry them out, but that didn’t prevent two of the plants from dying.
“The remaining two plants continued to thrive and one of them eventually blossomed into a flower this weekend,’’ he said.
He said more crops would be sent to the space station this year, including Chinese cabbage and romaine lettuce.
Smith said the lessons learned from these plants would help grow tomatoes in 2018.
Alexandra Whitmire, Deputy Scientist for the Behavioural Health and Performance element in the NASA Human Research Programme, said the implications of plant life for space missions are very significant, including helping boosting astronauts’ spirits while they’re working there.
He said plants could indeed enhance long duration missions in isolated, confined and extreme environments that are artificial and deprived of nature.
“While not all crew members may enjoy taking care of plants, for many, having this option is beneficial.
“In the long term, plant experiments will yield important information in preparation for a Mars mission.
“In future missions, the importance of plants will likely increase given the crews’ limited connection to Earth,”he said.
Whitmire said studies from other isolated and confined environments such as Antarctic stations, demonstrated the importance of plants in confinement, and how much more salient fresh food becomes psychologically when there is little stimuli around.
