Astronauts on the International Space Station planted chili peppers in orbit.
The project, NASA’s Plant Habitat-04, aims to gauge the possibilities of growing plants outside of the Earth’s soil. The peppers, whose seeds were planted in June, will be ready to eat in a few months.
“The challenge is the ability to feed crews in low-Earth orbit, and then to sustain explorers during future missions beyond low-Earth orbit to destinations including the Moon, as part of the Artemis program, and eventually to Mars. We are limited to crops that don’t need storage, or extensive processing,” said Matt Romeyn, the experiment’s principal investigator, in a release from NASA.
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Consuming spicy peppers is beneficial for astronauts in space, according to the agency. They can reignite senses of taste and smell lost in space and clear up symptoms of head colds astronauts can catch during travel. They are also rich in vitamin C.
After sanitizing the 48 seeds, the crew planted them in a specialized advanced plant habitat, which has baked clay for roots to sprout into and periodically dispenses fertilizer to the seeds. The advanced plant habitat can control growing factors such as LED light exposure and water.
“The spiciness of a pepper is determined by environmental growing conditions. The combination of microgravity, light quality, temperature, and rootzone moisture will all affect flavor, so it will be interesting to find out how the fruit will grow, ripen, and taste,” said the project science team lead, LaShelle Spencer.
“This is important because the food astronauts eat needs to be as good as the rest of their equipment,” she added. “To successfully send people to Mars and bring them back to Earth, we will not only require the most nutritious foods, but the best tasting ones as well.”
NASA previously grew other spaces crops, such as red romaine lettuce and zinnias.
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The crew will eat some of the peppers, recording their thoughts on their taste, smell, and other sensory factors, and send the rest down to Earth for analysis.
