According to Russian news agency RIA Novosti, “Russian space farmers” have managed to grow a variety of crops on board the International Space Station, and yesterday, they were verified as safe to eat. In the case of the ISS, astronauts wouldn’t have to rely as much on periodic resupply missions to get their food. And in cases of deep space travel—like a fucking lifelong mission to Mars, for instance—astronauts wouldn’t have to stockpile as large a food supply upon takeoff, making their launch weight a lot lighter. Space-based agriculture has long been of interest to scientists, as plants not only scrub carbon dioxide exhaled by astronauts, but could be used to recycle human waste into food.
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