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we all remember the great photos of crew

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members chell lindgren and scott kelly

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as they ate lettuce on the station and

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then scott kelly showed off his green

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thumb by showing us beautiful pictures

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of the zinnias he had grown in space

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well all that is thanks to a facility

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called veggie i spoke with joya masa the

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veggie scientist at kennedy space center

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to get the latest on the lettuce and

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find out what astronauts will be growing

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next yeah i don't think any of us

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expected that

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you know we

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we think it's exciting but we really had

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no idea how the general public would

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respond and i mean we've had media

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inquiries from all over the world you

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know

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many many students have been really

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engaged by it which has been wonderful

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and just yeah the general public i think

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it came down to the people that like

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growing plants the people that like

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to cook and the people that like to eat

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and that's a lot of people so pretty

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much everybody yeah

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it was a huge success we learned a lot

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and and we were just delighted that the

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astronauts were able to eat the lettuce

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finally

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did it taste like lettuce

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well um from what we heard it tasted

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fresh it tasted a little like arugula

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some of the the plants in this group get

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some more bitter compounds if they're

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under some stress and they were under

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some water stress and arugula tends to

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be a little more bitter than lettuce so

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when we heard scott kelly said kind of

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like arugula we thought

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you know that that's really interesting

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maybe it did get some of those more

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bitter compounds but i think in space

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having that enhanced flavor is actually

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really desirable so they seemed to

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really enjoy it there wasn't a lot they

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didn't get to eat a ton

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no and we are still bringing back some

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frozen for for scientific analysis to to

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just confirm so we didn't let them eat

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all of it but you wanted to like too

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right yeah

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but probably not frozen

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hi

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scott kelly aboard the international

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space station

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i want to go and check on my

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flowers i'm growing here in the

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columbus module

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so after the lettuce

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they were able to grow the zinnia seeds

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that we had on orbit and so we'd sent

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zinnias we weren't sure when they would

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be able to eat the lettuce so so we

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wanted to send a crop that they wouldn't

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want to eat but that they could enjoy

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and have have bloom and zinnia is a

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great model system for

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longer duration crops like tomato and so

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this is a really great test for the

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system to see how it runs under a longer

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duration and also zinnia is a flowering

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crop and so tomatoes will have to flower

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before they set fruit so seeing how

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crops flower in the system

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seeing if there are any limitations on

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that is really important

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it's kind of nice to have some flowers

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up here you don't see much that is

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alive and growing besides the six of us

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here

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it's had a psychological effect too and

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i think that's what your hopes were as

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well right yeah i mean we're very

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interested to see this and we also have

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future you know experiments where we'll

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actually be evaluating some of that um

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but just seeing the the the crew

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enjoyment seeing them take the flowers

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out move them to different parts of the

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habitat they they posed with one of the

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the first flowers for the 300 day photo

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and then they put it on their dining

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table for dinner that night you know so

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i think it really um shows the impact of

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having something green and growing when

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you're living in this environment so far

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away from from earth and from green

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growing things generally

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so what's next what are we going to see

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next growing so next we're sending some

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chinese cabbage and some more of the red

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romaine lettuce

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the chinese cabbage was actually

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selected through a human research

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program funded study where we down

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selected crops based on

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how well they grow their nutritional

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attributes looking specifically at

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nutrients that are really desired for

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the space diet and their organoleptic

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attributes how how the flavor is how

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well they taste we actually grew produce

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of a bunch of different varieties sent

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them to johnson space center from

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kennedy where they did the the taste

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evaluations at johnson and this chinese

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cabbage

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wasn't the most nutritious but it was by

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far the best horticulturally it was very

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productive fast-growing plant and it got

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off the charts um organoleptic

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evaluations people just love the taste

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of it so we think that the astronauts

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are going to love this as well

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we are going to send more of the red

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romaine lettuce also and those two crops

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will be sent up on spacex eight um we're

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also going to try sending some ranch

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dressing in the future to go along with

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our salad okay

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yeah so they're gonna need some tomatoes

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for that salad though when are we gonna

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see that

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so over the next couple of years we're

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working on growing tomatoes in this

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system we've down selected also a small

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variety of tomatoes it's about this tall

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it's called red robin and it's a cherry

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tomato and so we will have

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our next couple of veggie flights we're

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going to actually be doing experiments

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and this is something that i'm leading a

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team from

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kennedy johnson purdue university and

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orbitech orbital technologies

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corporation that developed the veggie

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and we're doing light recipes for these

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crops so we're going to see what is the

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best red to blue ratio to give the best

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nutrition and flavor and growth of the

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crops and we're also going to do some

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fertilizer testing so we'll do this with

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chinese cabbage again and then we're

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going to do this with dwarf tomato and

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the chinese cabbage will be probably

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around the end of 2017

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and the dwarf tomato will be around 2018

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time frame

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we're going to actually have two veggie

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units up there by that point to be able

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to do some side-by-side testing what do

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you think when you saw the martian and

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he was growing his own food oh i thought

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that was wonderful i think it really

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raised awareness among you know the

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general public and nasa as a whole about

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the importance of food production and

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you know getting us to the point where

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we will be able to grow a larger

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percentage of our diet um

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and also just the the importance of of

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having plants you know in in a scenario

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when you're on this really desolate you