Sunday Supplement: Stained Glass, Growing Plants, and a Purple Glow
NASA’s space plants programme inspired an artistic installation
Hello, Gardeners of the Galaxy, and welcome to the GotG Sunday Supplement, premium content for my top Rocket Boosters!
I can trace my interest in space plants to 8 May 2014, when NASA astronaut Steve Swanson started the first crop of lettuce (‘Outredgeous’ red romaine) in the new Veggie growing system on the International Space Station. The VEG-01 A experiment involved six plant pillows. The seeds planted in one didn’t germinate. Two of the plants died due to water stress. After 33 days, the ISS crew harvested three healthy lettuce plants, which were frozen and returned to Earth for analysis.
When those results showed the lettuce was safe to eat, astronaut Scott Kelly started the second crop of lettuce – VEG-01 B – on 8 July 2015. He and his companions were able to munch on homegrown lettuce leaves a month later.
Veggie – and its iconic pinkish-purple glow – took the world by storm. In November 2015, Earth was treated to a similar visual experience, when bioartist Suzanne Anker displayed her Astroculture installation.
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