Astronauts on the ISS have had a taco feast using chillies grown onboard
- Published
- comments
It's taco time onboard the ISS!
Taco look at this!
Astronauts onboard the International Space Station (ISS) have treated themselves to a feast of delicious tacos, using chillies they grew inside the spacecraft.
Astronaut Meghan McArthur was delighted by the meal, tweeting: "Friday Feasting! After the harvest, we got to taste red and green chilli. Then we filled out surveys (got to have the data!).
"Finally, I made my best space tacos yet: fajita beef, rehydrated tomatoes & artichokes, and HATCH CHILLI!"
One of the astronauts onboard the ISS took to social media to declare how delicious the meal was!
This isn't first time crops have been harvested in space - astronauts have previously grown lettuce, kale and Chinese cabbage.
This is however the first time the spicy peppers have been grown in orbit.
It was done as part of an experiment that will help Nasa learn more about growing fresh food on long missions.
Why are they growing food on the spacecraft?
Fresh food takes up a lot of room, and weighs spacecrafts down, so astronauts can't go onboard with too much.
For this reason, water is taken out of lots of the foods they pack in a process known as dehydration, and stored in vacuum sealed bags, which saves room and makes it lighter. This process also prevents the food from going off.
However, this limits the kinds of foods they can take, so scientists want to find ways of growing vitamin-rich foods for the astronauts to enjoy.
It also limits the amount, so growing food in space will mean less trips to deliver packaged foods to crews.
But why peppers?
Did you know chillies are actually fruits?
Apparently, peppers were the perfect crop to experiment with because they contain loads of vitamin C, even more than some citrus fruits.
On top of that, astronauts lose some of their sense of taste while in zero-gravity, so growing something spicy to season their food with could help make meals in space more enjoyable.
How did they do it?
Astronauts are working out how to get fresh food on future space missions
Before selecting a pepper to grow on the space station, researchers spent two years evaluating more than 20 pepper varieties from around the world.
They narrowed it down and selected the NuMex 'Espa帽ola Improved' pepper, a hybrid Hatch pepper. This is the term used to describe chillies from Hatch, New Mexico, and the Hatch Valley in southern New Mexico.
Seeds were then used to grow the chillies.
- Published13 May 2021
- Published28 October 2021
- Published15 December 2018
