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now this week obviously as we celebrate

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earth we reflect on one of earth's many

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benefits and that is plants

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while toddlers may not fully appreciate

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their veggies

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space crews are always excited when a

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spacecraft docks bringing fresh fruits

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and vegetables from earth and the spacex

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dragon that arrived recently

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has delivered a new experiment that's

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designed to help space crews grow their

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own veggies on board

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this would be essential obviously for

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long deep space missions

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jessica egan with the poic there at the

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marshall space flight center spoke with

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a representative of

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the orbital technologies about the

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veggies project

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the veggie is a food production system

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that will be flown to space station at

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the end of this year

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to provide

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supplemental nourishment to the

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astronauts and grow vegetables and such

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as lettuce and tomatoes and radishes and

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and a full dietary menu is capable on

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this production system the hardware

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consists of a an led uh lid with

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lighting underneath it with a bellow

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system and a skeleton that holds that

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all together we have root maps with

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seeds inside of them and and the

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it's an accordion type

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system that will raise as the plants

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grow

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and the lighting system is only the

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light that is necessary for plants to

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live and it's a 24 7 cycle so there is

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no night time so it grows very quickly

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and we turn the crops very quickly so

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why is this unique

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well uh it's unique in a way that it's

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very interactive to the astronauts they

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can touch it feel it have the goodness

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there's been plant science up there but

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it's all been enclosed and very uh

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controlled environment this this

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environment is

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outside it's it's very very

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interactive to the astronauts

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we

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are very interested in the environmental

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control and life support systems with

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this plant technology iss with zero g

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we're able to take and assess what the

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plants do in the grow and what we're

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trying to do is capture the humidity

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condensation and result recycle it back

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into the environmental control systems

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so in this effort to resource utilize

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um as much as possible now it's it's

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critical to do this at zero g because if

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we're going to do long duration space

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moon mars this has to be done and we

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have to recover and and take those

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resources as far as they can we have

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commercialized a lot of this technology

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with the led lighting

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systems and wavelengths of lights we're

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actually building full rooms of

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plant growth rooms for customers

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universities uh things like that

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the applications for this

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commercialization for this is is endless

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you know the extreme environment uh

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places where we can grow year round

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within these systems and produce

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a lot of food for uh people that don't

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wouldn't normally get that fresh food we

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have customers commercial as well as

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government that want to put hotels into

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space that want to put

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colonize the moon eventually mars and to

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do that this is the starting period and

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iss gives us that platform which is a

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wonderful platform

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the first batch

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will be tested thoroughly

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to ensure safety and nutrition but the

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goal is to eventually allow

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international space station astronauts