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we've been testing a variety of

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different crops to grow in veggie we

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began with leafy greens specifically

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this red romaine lettuce which was

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selected because of its small size its

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high growth rate

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it's excellent germination and also the

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lettuce has very low natural microbial

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levels associated with it so it would be

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safe for the crew to eat the astronauts

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harvested the lettuce that's been

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growing for 33 days and the harvest had

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two parts first they harvested some

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leaves from each plant for consumption

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and they had a little bit of a

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celebration and then they harvested the

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rest of the plants for our science so

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those plants were harvested into soil

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and frozen in the -80 freezer on ISS and

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they'll be returned to us to do analysis

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of that tissue in terms of how safe the

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food is we assessed that by first

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growing a set of lettuce in space and

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having it returned to Earth last year

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where we tested a number of different

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aspects of that crop we looked at the

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food safety of that crop and we didn't

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find anything that led us to believe

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that it wouldn't be safe to eat to grow

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enough food you know to support the crew

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takes up a lot of volume in a spacecraft

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where where volume is very expensive and

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it's limited you know we're trying to

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grow highly productive plants and plants

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that are a very small stature and so we

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select crops that have a very high

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edible proportion of their yield this is

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called the the harvest index the

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proportion of the the edible biomass to

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the total biomass for the first crew to

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Mars they're probably not going to have

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a lot of food processing or food

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preparation equipment and they may not

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even have cooking equipment and that's

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how it is on the space station right now

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they don't actually

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have an ability to cook any food up

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there so all of the food that they're

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growing is what we call pick and eat it

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has to be able to be eaten fresh so

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we've been looking at lettuce other

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leafy green vegetables dwarf tomatoes

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dwarf peppers radish potentially some

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herbs that can be picked and mixed in

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with a packaged diet and we're even

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starting to look at small fruit crops

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we've been testing some dwarf plum trees

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but again these are all things that can

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be eaten fresh once we are established

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on Mars and we have a long term base we

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may have more equipment to be able to

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process and cook food and so then things

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like sweet potatoes or white potatoes or

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beans could easily be grown and used to

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provide food for the diet so we're

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testing both types of scenarios but for

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now we're concentrating on what could be

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cooked or what could be picked and eaten

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without cooking so we've had a lot of

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feedback from different crew members who

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were on the space station during the

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first veggie test and also during the

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second test where they were allowed to

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eat the produce in the first test I

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think the crew actually really wanted to

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eat the lettuce but they were good they

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sent it all back to us but the the

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consensus was that we need to be growing

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more vegetables and space station that

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they really want to grow things that

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they can eat more than ornamental crops

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and that this is something that the

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different astronauts really couldn't

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imagine going for longer or farther into

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space without without having this little

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slice of Earth there to remind them of

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home they all really enjoy the first

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harvest of lettuce all the astronauts

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and cosmonauts were around watching and

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taking photographs and we had numerous

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comments and photos throughout the

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growth cycle about how much they enjoyed

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watching the plants grow in helping to

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mark the passage of time in this grill

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out again we had a lot of really

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positive feedback from the crew

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basically they were all there for the

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harvest except the Russian cosmonauts

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who are

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on an extra vehicular activity and the

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astronauts saved some of the lettuce for

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the cosmonauts to eat for when they

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finish their Eve ei which was really

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wonderful when they ate the first batch

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of lettuce their comments were very

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supportive and enthusiastic and they

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seemed to really enjoy it

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so that just made me feel wonderful that

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I was able to help be part of a team

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that could provide them with with such a

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source of enjoyment one thing we really

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hope is that the crew will be able to

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pick which types of plants that they

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want to grow in the future so we're

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working to develop a crew Garden

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mentality where they can select which

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crops that they'll want to grow and then

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eat them so we have you know a lot of