New Mexico chile selected to be grown in space
NEW MEXICO (AP) — It’ll be one giant leap for chile-kind.
A hybrid version of a New Mexico chile plant has been selected to be grown in space as part of a NASA experiment.
The chile, from Española, New Mexico, is tentatively scheduled to be launched to the International Space Station for testing in March 2020, the
Albuquerque Journal reports. A NASA group testing how to produce food beyond the Earth’s atmosphere and the chile plant was created with input from Jacob Torres — an Española native and NASA researcher.
Torres said the point of sending the chiles into space is to demonstrate how NASA’s Advanced Plant Habitat — which recreates environmental needs for plant growth like Co2, humidity and lighting — works not only for leafy greens, but for fruiting crops, as well.
“Which means that if we do go on a deep space mission, or we do go to the moon or a mission to Mars, we will have to figure out a way to supplement our diets,” he said.
“Understanding how to grow plants to supplement the astronaut’s diet would be essential to our mission to going to Mars. So that kind of fuels our research that we’re doing now.”
The “Española Improved” chile plant is a cross between a northern New Mexico seed and the popular Sandia seed from the Hatch Valley.
It will be the first fruiting plant that the US will grow aboard the Space Station.
NASA’s astronauts have previously grown greens, and a zinnia bloomed in space in 2016.