For the first time since the end of NASA's Apollo missions to the moon, there is serious talk of sending humans beyond low earth orbit. NASA has been courting ideas for journeys to the moon and eventually Mars, while SpaceX is hell bent on being the first to get boots on the Red Planet. These ambitious plans present a host of technical challenges, however, particularly when it comes to food. This is why researchers at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida have turned themselves into space farmers—without leaving Earth.Up until 2015, the fare for astronauts aboard the International Space Station was limited to the dehydrated, freeze-dried foods that would be delivered aboard cargo resupply missions. Not only are these foods lacking in the taste department, but at $10,000 per pound, it's also incredibly expensive to ship freeze-dried spaghetti to low earth orbit. The goal, then, is to figure out how to produce food in space. This idea had its first proof of concept in August of 2015, when astronauts aboard the ISS were treated to a rare delicacy: fresh lettuce that was grown in space.That lettuce was made possible by NASA's vegetable production system, otherwise known as Veggie, one of the handful of approaches the agency is taking to offset food transport costs and provide astronauts with a nutritious diet on long duration space missions. During a recent visit to Kennedy Space Center to view the SpaceX launch to the ISS, I stopped by NASA's labs to see how researchers are continuing to develop techniques to farm in microgravity.Read the rest of this article on MOTHERBOARD.
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