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the station crew has been wrapping up a

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hardware validation test this week

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called veggie harvesting the lettuce

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plants from a compact greenhouse that

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was flown to the station to demonstrate

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its potential use as a way to supply

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fresh food to astronauts on long

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duration space flights today we have a

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chance to get an early report on how

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that has been going and we have joining

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us from the kennedy space center in

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florida dr joya masa the science team

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lead for the veggie hardware validation

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test thanks so much for joining us julia

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thanks for inviting me brandi

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well why don't we start off by letting

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you kind of remind us exactly what this

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experiment is about what what what the

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sure well veggie is a new plant growth

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chamber that we just sent up on space x3

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so for the first test we wanted to just

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validate that the chamber would

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successfully grow plants and that all

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the systems

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worked well

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and so to do that we selected outregis

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red romaine lettuce as our first test

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crop

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okay well that sounds exciting how's

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this different from

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other plants grown on in space and

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different

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well veggie is one of the largest plant

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growth chambers ever in space the

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largest that nasa has so far

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and it's designed to be really um

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open for the crew to see and to interact

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with easily so instead of being in a

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closed box with the door

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the chamber has transparent

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collapsible and expandable bellows and

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so the crew can just you know float by

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and see the plants growing in there

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it also has

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led lights and we used red blue and

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green led lights in the veggie the red

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and blue lights are really for plant

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growth and the green led lights are for

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the humans to make the plants look a

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little more like plants

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so if you've seen shots of the columbus

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module lately you'll see this kind of

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purplish glow in there and that's the

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veggie chamber on and it seems like the

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astronauts and cosmonauts have kind of

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enjoyed taking pictures of the purple

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light

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in fact i think we actually have some

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video of steve swanson working to

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harvest some of that

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some of that lettuce that we can

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take a look at

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do you have any idea how that how that's

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well we have a little bit of an idea

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so we had six what we call plant pillows

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in there

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you can see steve here harvesting

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one of the plants and holding it up

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the plants that grew grew really well

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we had one plant pillow that did not

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germinate so we're going to bring that

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one back and try and figure out what

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went wrong and here you see a great shot

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of the lettuce it just

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looked beautiful

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when he harvests it we have him wrap it

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in foil and we're not allowing the crew

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to eat the plants at this time because

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we really need to bring them back and

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make sure that they're safe to eat and

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that nothing

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odd happened we had a little bit of an

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issue early on with some of the water

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getting to the plants that we weren't

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getting quite enough water to some of

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the plants so a couple of the plants

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didn't make it but the three plants that

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grew grew excessively well and they kind

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of filled up the rest of the space as

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you could see yeah they look just like

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what i would expect lettuce to look like

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well

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so once you do get them back to down on

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well we have a couple of different

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samples that were taken

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the crew actually swabbed the leaves and

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the surfaces of veggie to look for

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microbial

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growth on the leaves and on the surfaces

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and we're also getting those frozen

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plant backs plants back so we'll do

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microbial sampling of those plants we're

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also going to sample the plant tissue

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and look at antioxidant content and

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mineral content within the plants we

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want to know

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you know how nutritious these plants

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would be for the crew when they are

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allowed to eat them

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and

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the microbial side of things is really

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aimed towards the food safety you know

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we think they're probably perfectly safe

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but we need to confirm that and make

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sure that there aren't any

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bacteria that are up on space station

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that might have just fallen in love with

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growing all over the plants because it's

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not so easy to wash your vegetables in

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space

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would this be considered alien lettuce

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well it's definitely extraterrestrial

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lettuce

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well um i think

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also we're growing some of your own here

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on earth right what what will you do

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so that was our ground control and

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those plants are also sampled in exactly

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the same way that we sampled the ones on

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orbit

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they did microbial swab sampling of the

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plants and they also cut the plants and

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froze them here you can see some of the

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swab sampling of the leaf surfaces so

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this is a way to look and to just see

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you know what kind of microbial growth

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is on them so we'll be able to compare

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the plants from the ground and the

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plants that were grown on space station

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and see do we see any big differences

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between those

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in terms of populations of organisms

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types of organisms that might be on the

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leaves and also the the antioxidant and

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mineral levels within those plants

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okay well it looks like everything went

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really well would you say it all was as

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well yeah i mean the hardware performed

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really well for the most part our light

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system was worked great

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the plant pillows these little grow bags

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worked really well to

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distribute water to the growing roots

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and provide fertilizer for the plants in

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a way for the roots to to attach once we

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get a couple of the pillows back we'll

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be able to see that root growth a little

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bit better

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we did have a couple of issues keeping

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the correct amount of water to the

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plants and so that's something that

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we're going to learn from and work on to

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to fix in the future so that the plants

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get enough water all throughout their

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life cycle because that water need

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changes as the plants grow

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okay well what's the next step for this

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experiment is it done here or do you

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well we sent additional pillows up to

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space station on spacex 3 that contain

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lettuce seeds and also zinnia seeds

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zinnia is a small flower and we thought

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that the crew could grow those and enjoy

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just having some flowers around without

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being tempted to eat them

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and then the lettuce

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would be additional

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data for our food safety analysis or if

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we get enough data and we get those back

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maybe the crew could actually grow those

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and eat those at a later point but we we

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have to get the plant samples back first

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and we won't get those back until spacex

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4 returns

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so both those lettuce seed pillows and

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the zinnia seed pillows are going to be

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hopefully added to the voluntary science

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list and then the crew can choose

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whether or not they want to grow those

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plants

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and we think this is just the first of

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many things that will be going on in the

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okay well we um we'll look forward to

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that hope to see some flowers growing in

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space pretty soon

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thanks so much for joining us again we

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hope so too

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thanks again this is julia massa who is

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the science team lead for the veggie

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hardware validation test thanks again