Space Farming Yields a Crop of Benefits for Earth

The six astronauts currently living on the International Space Station (ISS) have become the first people to eat food grown in space. The fresh red romaine lettuce that accompanied the crew’s usual freeze-dried fare, however, is far from the first crop grown on a space station. For decades, NASA and other agencies have experimented with plants in space, but the results were always sent to Earth for examination, rather than eaten. A number of technologies NASA has explored for these space-farming experiments also have returned to Earth over the years and found their way onto the market as LED lighting systems, air purifiers, and other agricultural innovations.