NASA Planted Chili Peppers in Space: They grew & the astronauts made tacos (photo)

Space agriculture

Did you imagine that you can grow vegetables just in your garden?

NASA announced that it is producing the first chili peppers in space, with astronauts on the International Space Station eating them with tacos.

The U.S. space agency said the chili peppers were grown for research on Plant Habitat-04.

“The research included microbial analysis to improve understanding of plant-microbial interactions in space and crew assessment of the taste, texture and nutrition of the first peppers grown in space”, NASA said in a statement Friday.

The peppers grown on the International Space Station were from Chile. It is a cross between the “sandia” variety of southern New Mexico and a local one grown in the northern part of the state.

“Most of the Hatch peppers are eaten when they are green, but this is one of the few that is regularly consumed in both the green and red stages of their development”, said NASA.

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However, the International Space Station’s Twitter account called it “one of the most demanding plant experiments to date”. Peppers are “more difficult to grow than many potential space crops because they take longer to germinate, grow and bear fruit”, NASA said in a statement.

NASA astronaut Megan McArthur, who has been on the ISS since April, wrote on Twitter that after collecting the chili peppers, and after recording the data, they tested them.

“After the harvest, we tasted the red and green chili peppers”, he wrote on Twitter. “Then we completed the research (we have to have the data!) and finally made the best space tacos so far: fajita beef, rehydrated tomato and artichoke and hatch chile pepper”.