Lost and found first tomato ever grown in space: NASA shares 'saucy' story and unseen photos
ALSO READ: Earth had close shave with over 100 Vatican City, Burj Khalifa-sized asteroids in 2023: NASA's top targets unveiled He conducted the experiment aboard the space station in 2022, during his record-breaking 371-day mission. These were the first tomatoes ever grown in space or harvested on the ISS. In an interview in October this year, Rubio said that when he lost those tomatoes, "a lot of people" accused him of "probably" eating them.
Recalling the incident, Rubio said, "I put (the tomato) in a little bag, and one of my crewmates was doing [an] event with some schoolkids, and I thought it'd be kind of cool to show the kids, 'Hey guys, this is the first tomato harvested in space.'" ALSO READ: Year-Ender 2023: Top 5 times Nasa, ISS shared Earth's stellar poses for the Cosmic Kaleidoscope "Then, I was pretty confident that I Velcroed it where I was supposed to Velcro it, and then I came back and it was gone," Rubio added. He estimated he spent between 8 and 20 hours of his own time searching for the lost fruit. "I wanted to find it mostly so I could prove, like, 'I did not eat the tomato,'" he said, explaining that he never found it.
"A proud moment of harvesting the first tomato in space became a self-inflicted wound of losing the first tomato in space," he said. ALSO READ: Nasa study finds life-sparking energy source on Saturn’s icy moon Months after Rubio's return to Earth, Expedition 70 crew members closed this peculiar case. Nearly a year after the tomatoes disappeared, "they were found dehydrated and slightly squished".
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