NASA Scientists Harvested Food Crops in Antarctica For The First Time — Then, They Took a Bite

Antarctica’s Ekström Ice Shelf is a giant of ice walloped constantly by devilish squalls and brutal blizzards. The Sun barely rises above the horizon; polar nights often dazzle with vivid auroras, and raging katabatic winds funnel through narrow valleys, flowing downhill from high elevations and stirring coastal currents. At a quarter mile distance from the Neumayer research Station III, located on the ice shelf, stands a shipping container-sized greenhouse called EDEN-ISS. Inside this hi-tech space-age greenhouse, NASA scientists dive into a gustatory adventure by exploring methods to grow vegetables.

If veggies can be grown in this harsh Antarctic environment, it could unlock possibilities for space agriculture, as shared in a 2018 press release by the German Aerospace Center (DLR), behind the EDEN-ISS experiment. EDEN-ISS is a “closed-loop life support system for long-term space missions,” according to a video by Liquifer (@liquifer7453). The greenhouse has state-of-the-art technologies and systems, including an “air management system, nutrient delivery system, light systems, and plant health monitoring systems,” DLR scientist Paul Zabel explained in the video.

While he spent his winter, or overwintered at the greenhouse, around 2017 and 2018, he helped produce the first harvest, which included 8 pounds of lettuce, 70 radishes, and 18 cucumbers. "Seeing our first fresh Antarctic salad was a truly special moment. It tasted like it had just been harvested from the garden,” station manager Bernhard Gropp said in the press release.

Over these years, the scientists have cultivated other crops in the greenhouse, including leafy greens, rucola, Red Robin tomatoes, peppers, beans, kohlrabi, cabbage, purple-leaved Rosie Asian ancient greens, and herbs like thyme, basil, parsley, chives, rosemary, mint, oregano, and cilantro. After all, the spaceflight doesn’t have to be devoid of spice for the astronauts. By growing these herbs at the International Space Station (ISS), astronauts can spice up their potatoes, noodles, salads, and pastas.

In early 2022, another plant scientist from NASA, Jess Bunchek, departed the greenhouse to return to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and report her experience staying at EDEN-ISS for the past year. During her stay, Bunchek successfully grew several crops, including some previously grown and eaten on the space station, such as Mizuna mustard, Outredgeous lettuce, Frizzy Lizzy mustard, Waldmann’s Green lettuce, Dragoon lettuce, and Amara mustard, according to a NASA press release. She also experimented on growing chile peppers so future astronauts could derive their supply of spice and Vitamin C by growing them in their space station’s garden.

“When working with plants intended for the International Space Station, we have to consider the unique growing conditions that make crop production especially challenging there, such as the higher concentration of carbon dioxide on the station, microgravity versus Earth’s gravity, and how fluids like air and water act differently in space,” Bunchek reflected.

She emphasized that this research experiment is a perfect space analog setting to simulate whether astronauts would be able to grow all this food in the isolated and microgravity setting of the space station as well as in much harsher environments of the Moon and Mars where it would be next to impossible to send supply spaceships for astronauts. “We can now compare the survey responses from the space station crew as they interact with plant production systems with those of the Antarctic overwintering crew members interacting with EDEN,” Bunchek said.