NASA to Grow Lettuce in Space on Veggie Flight Pillows

Posted on May 4, 2014

NASA plans to grow romaine lettuce in space using Veggie flight pillows. The plant growth facility was delivered to the International Space Station (ISS) on SpaceX's Dragon cargo ship last month.

The space greenhouse, called a Veggie flight pillow (pictured above), is a plant growth chamber that uses a flat-panel light bank that includes red, blue and green LEDs. It is collapsible for easy transportation. It can be expanded to up to a foot and a half to grow plants. It is the largest plant growth chamber for space to date. In tests at Kennedy's Space Life Sciences Laboratory, a crop of lettuce and radishes was grown from seedlings placed in the Veggie root-mat pillow.

NASA says the "plant pillows" help solve the problem of weightlessness. Trent Smith, the project manager from KSC says the pillows are "bags and 'space dirt' and slow-release fertilizer." He also says wicks, which act like a gardening stake, are "inserted into the bags draw water into the soil where it cannot float away."

Gioia Massa, NASA payload scientist for Veggie, says in a statement, "Veggie will provide a new resource for U.S. astronauts and researchers as we begin to develop the capabilities of growing fresh produce and other large plants on the space station. Determining food safety is one of our primary goals for this validation test."

Massa hopes Veggie will eventually provide a reusable food source for the crew. She says, "I am thrilled to be a member of the Veggie and Veg-01 team and proud of all the work we have done to prepare for flight. Our team is very excited to see the hardware in use on the space station."

This NASA video explains some of the problems with growing plants in a rainless, weightless environment. It also explains how Veggie helps solve the problem and could lead to home grown food on the ISS. Take a look:

PLANTS