There are many subsist organism aboard the International Space Station ( ISS ) , from astronauts and cosmonauts toplants , bacterium , andfungi . Ensuring all of them are well and healthy is the humans ’ obligation , so when astronaut Mike Hopkins remark an ailing denizen , he did the ISS equivalent of rushing it into OR and performed a life - salvage transplant . The patient ? A pak choi .
On Earth , plant graft are risky enough when plants are in a delicate state . In place , it had never been try before – and to the surprise and delight of both Hopkins and the NASA scientists on Earth working on the agency’sVegetable Production System(Veggie ) , it worked .
According to NASA , the transplant recipients are doing well . “ The transplantation – ‘ Red Russian ’ Brassica oleracea acephala and ‘ Extra Dwarf ’ pak choi – are surviving and growing along with the donor kale and pak choi , ” it order in astatement .
In fact , the transplanted plant likely would n’t have survived on Earth . Now , they are growing better than they would have on our home planet thanks to an unusual factor up there : microgravity .
Before you get concerned that this is how horror movies start , where humanity have gotten involved in something they should n’t have and the corridors of the distance post are presently going to echo to the ringing demand of " Feed me , Seymour , " Hopkins is due to harvest the harvest today . The astronauts will eat part of it , while the rest are place back to Earth to be studied .
While the human indweller get plenty of nutritiouspackaged foodon the ISS , vitamins in a packaged dieting can break down , their sustenance diminish the longer they are in storage . The idea of being ego - sufficient and grow your own veg may be vital for longsighted - condition outer space missions and succeeding settlers on another planet .
The Veggie experiment has been on board the ISS since 2018 , and has seen wampum , mustards , and evenradishesflourish , growing on small " pillows " that contain stiff - based substrate and fertilizer . However , when Hopkins check in on the veggies in mid - January he notice some of the Red Romaine and Dragoon lettuce seeds were burgeon forth slowly , far behind the other plants . So slowly , in fact , it see like they would not get up by harvest time .
So , with guidance from the Veggie squad on Earth , Hopkins carried out the experimentation , transplanting extra sprouts from the thrive plants onto the pillows of the struggling plants , and it worked .
“ This little accidental transplant success is going to be pretty crucial ; it give up a lot of arena for next development , ” say Matt Romeyn , lead scientist on NASA ’s VEG-03I project , who was pretty pessimistic about the flora ' survival in space .
“ We ’re used to microgravity working against us in the fluids / physics section , hold uprise industrial plant in space very difficult . So to have an exception like this , where microgravity look to be helpful and the plant are growing better than on Earth … that ’s astonishing . ”
So how does microgravity aid the plant ? “ Fluids comport very differently in space than on the ground . The behavior of fluid – in this circumstance – seems to have helped the plants , ” Veggie platform plant scientist Gioia Massa say
Now we just have to hold off for the samples to make it back to Earth to see if we ’ve got aDay of the Triffids - esque scenario on our hands .
