Astronauts Eat First Space Grown Salad

Woohoo! Cheers!

Cheers! Cheers!

[Voiceover] Hey, astronauts! Looks like you've just grown

something sweet in your hydroponic garden.

Oh. It's just lettuce.

(astronauts laughing)

For the first time, astronauts ate

a few Red Romaine lettuce leaves they'd grown aboard

the International Space Station.

That's awesome. Good.

Tastes good? Yeah!

[Voiceover] It wasn't the first time plants

have been grown in space,

but it was a giant leap for fresh, edible food in orbit.

The space salad could be a key

to future manned missions to Mars,

or even space colonies.

And it's technology may find wider use on Earth,

for growing... 'plants' indoors.

For thirty three days, the lettuce grew

bathed in red, blue, and green LED lights,

which are highly efficient,

but don't make the plants very mouthwatering;

but as humans consider spending more and more time in space,

NASA says that gardening may be good for both nutrition

and for crew recreation and well-being.

After all, it's a long trip to Mars, man.