MOSCOW, Jan. 31 (UPI) -- A variety of crops successfully grown and harvested on the International Space Station have been verified as safe to eat, a Russian scientist says. <\/p>\n
Space-based agriculture has long been of interest, as plants not only scrub carbon dioxide exhaled by astronauts but could be a renewable food source, scientists have said. <\/p>\n
\"The experiments with peas have been very promising,\" Margarita Levinskikh, a researcher at the Institute of Biomedical Problems, told an annual space conference in Moscow in describing the ISS \"farming.\" <\/p>\n
Russian cosmonauts have grown Japanese leafy greens and a variety of dwarf wheat that has produced seeds of \"just extraordinary quality,\" RIA Novosti quoted her as saying. <\/p>\n
Russian cosmonauts will sow rice, tomatoes and bell peppers in the station's Lada greenhouse next year, she said, a cooperative effort between the institute and the Space Dynamics Laboratory at Utah State University. <\/p>\n
Currently all food onboard the space station is flown there on periodic resupply missions. Long-duration deep space missions without agriculture would require many months' or years' worth of food, greatly adding to their launch weight, the institute said. <\/p>\n
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Space station 'farm' successfully grows a variety of crops<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" MOSCOW, Jan. 31 (UPI) -- A variety of crops successfully grown and harvested on the International Space Station have been verified as safe to eat, a Russian scientist says Continue reading