2023-12-07 13:00:00
A piece of tomato grown on the space station and lost for eight months has finally been found, NASA announced. Although not serious, the incident became a big joke within the American agency.
Who stole, stole, stole… The tomato? On the international space station, the disappearance of a fruit has become a running gag among astronauts. Eight months after being lost in the ISS, the remains of a tomato grown in orbit were found.
Frank Rubio didn’t eat the tomato!
To understand the matter, we must go back to the birth of this juicy little fruit. Last March, Frank Rubio, an American astronaut housed in the ISSis responsible for growing plants in space. The experiment, called Veg-05, involves testing “productivity, nutritional value and acceptability of crops” of dwarf tomatoes “Red Robin” “to complete the ISS food system”explain at NASA. But when growing the space vegetable garden, one of the plants mysteriously disappears.
The incident was only mentioned publicly months later, on November 13, by the astronauts. “I spent so many hours looking for this thing”, joked Franck Rubio during a video conference live from the ISS. You should know that not only is the astronaut habitat larger than a six-bedroom house, but also that objects float in orbit and can hide in unexpected cornersrecalls the specialized site Space.
“I’m sure the dried tomato will reappear at some point and vindicate me, years in the future,” added the man, now famous for being the American who spent the longest time in space in history.
If initially, the latter is accused of having eaten this famous piece of tomato, the mystery has just been solved. As he predicted, the fruit was discovered by chance.
“Our good friend Frank Rubio, who has already returned home, has been accused for some time of eating the tomato. But we can” exonerate him. “We found the tomato”, said NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli during a live event on Wednesday, December 6, to mark the 25th anniversary of the ISS. Returned to Earth since October, Frank Rubio can therefore keep the wolf from the door. The matter is settled.
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