If you think about going into space, if you have humans, you need to provide life support.

Humans need oxygen, we need food, we need clean water.

Through photosynthesis, plants can generate oxygen.

They can remove carbon dioxide.

They're always evaporating water so you can help them in purifying water if you design the systems.

And of course if you choose food crops, you can grow food.

But there's sort of less tangible things that could be really important.

If you see things, other earthly organisms like plants, the smells, the odors, they're living things, you watch them grow, you get a sense of time, these could be important in terms of the crew's well-being and mental health and things like that.

This is something that's innate to our being. It's part of the human condition.

This is NASA's curious universe. Our universe is a wild and wonderful place. I'm your host, Patty Boyd, and in this podcast, NASA is your tour guide.

You might be familiar with the idea of astronaut food.

Prepared meals and snacks we send up to space to feed our explorers.

But NASA scientists are also figuring out how to grow our own food in space

so we can supplement those prepackaged portions.

There's a whole lab at Kennedy Space Center devoted to it.

The plant processing area studies what astronauts need to stay happy and healthy, and what specialized habitats,

tools, and even plants we can use to garden in space.

So when we look at astronauts' health and performance, really the first line of defense for

crew health is their food system.

My name is Ralph Fritchie and I'm the space crop and exploration food system project manager

for NASA and I'm based out of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Ralph helps run the laboratory devoted to plants in space. Right now, all our cosmic gardening is done on board the International Space Station.

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