Houston, we now have a tomato: ISS astronauts find lacking fruit (or vegetable)

NASA astronaut Frank Rubio exams tomato crops rising within the Global Area Station for an area botany learn about.

Koichi Wakata/Japan Aerospace Exploration Company/NASA

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Koichi Wakata/Japan Aerospace Exploration Company/NASA

NASA astronaut Frank Rubio exams tomato crops rising within the Global Area Station for an area botany learn about.

Koichi Wakata/Japan Aerospace Exploration Company/NASA

It is gotta be arduous to lose one thing if you find yourself swirling across the Earth at the Global Area Station — proper? Neatly, it seems that no longer. A lacking tomato sparked a lighthearted thriller for the astronauts on board the ISS – and it is in the end been solved after months of accusations and intrigue. What is without doubt one of the first tomatoes ever harvested in area was once plucked by means of astronaut Frank Rubio in March, shared in a publish on X (previously referred to as Twitter) by means of NASA. So when it is smart that once it vanished, all finger pointing was once directed at Rubio.

It’s harvest time! 🍅The Veg-05 learn about is your next step in addressing the will for a continual fresh-food manufacturing device in area. This crop of dwarf tomatoes is heading again to Earth for medical research! %.twitter.com/4f0LtFwJAY— ISS Analysis (@ISS_Research) March 29, 2023

Rubio just lately made historical past for breaking the file of the longest spaceflight for a U.S. astronaut, spending 371 days in area. He returned to Earth on the finish of September and spoke at a NASA briefing in October, the place he addressed those tomato consuming allegations. He defined that NASA is carrying out botany research onboard the ISS so astronauts may determine techniques to develop brand new meals in area for long run missions. “I put [the tomato] in just a little bag, and one in all my crewmates was once doing [an] match with some schoolkids, and I assumed it might be more or less cool to turn the youngsters, ‘Hi there guys, that is the primary tomato harvested in area,’ ” he mentioned. “Then, I used to be lovely assured that I Velcroed it the place I used to be meant to Velcro it, after which I got here again and it was once long past.”

Rubio estimated he spent between 8 and 20 hours of his personal time on the lookout for the misplaced fruit. (Whether or not tomatoes are end result or greens will depend on who you ask. Within the nineteenth century, the Very best Courtroom got here down at the aspect of greens — type of.) “I sought after to search out it most commonly so I may end up, like, ‘I didn’t devour the tomato,’ ” he mentioned, and defined he by no means discovered it. “A proud second of harvesting the primary tomato in area turned into a self-inflicted wound of dropping the primary tomato in area.”

Rubio mentioned he was hoping anyone would to find it someday — and that hope was once in the end discovered greater than 8 months later.

“We would possibly have discovered one thing that anyone has been on the lookout for for somewhat some time,” astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli mentioned in a NASA video communicate from the ISS previous this week. “Our just right good friend Frank Rubio who headed house has been blamed for somewhat some time for consuming the tomato — however we will exonerate him: We discovered the tomato.” The team laughed. No phrase on the place it was once hiding or what it appeared like when it was once found out, despite the fact that. And now Frank Rubio walks the earth with a cleared identify.

Author: OpenAI