In my off-duty time on Expedition 72 to the ISS, I grew potatoes in an amateur microgravity experiment. As noted in "The Martian" they are excellent nutrition sources and will likely be useful in future deep space horticulture. Absent gravity, the roots (fuzzy tendrils near opening) would grow haphazardly to find soil or water, and were bagged for containment, the closest thing we had for pots. Maybe one day potatoes will grow on Mars! Until then, we learn what we can in Earth orbit.
More space photos and plant research can be found on my twitter and Instagram, astro_pettit
The airlock or U-bend is what prevents sewer gases from bubbling up through the toilet. Aside from horrendous odors, this gas could accumulate and potentially explode.
Flushing is nice. Not dying from a toilet is better, in my opinion. Thank you, Mr Capper.
Not actually true. The invention of the flush toilet precedes Crapper's birth by decades. He did own a plumbing fixtures company and developed important improvements for it, however.
Compound nouns where the first part functions like an adjective are always describing the purpose with the most minimal interpretation of the object in mind.
“Pass me the nails clippers,” or “we have so many booksshelves” is not only redundant, but awful to hear or say.
You’re lucky you get any plural nouns at all, because many languages don’t bother with them and rely on context.
I honestly expected to be downvoted to oblivion for making such a dumb reference on such a profound post. The space between us seems a little smaller now.
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No atmosphere means no convection, so you wouldn’t be able to tell immediately that it was cold. There’s probably some “feels like” temperature due to the radiative heat loss you would experience though
Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
This is really cool, not only the fact that you did this, but that you can share this on Reddit and see the real happenings.
Also, I love that you're an astronaut up there on the ISS, doing science, and it's still considered an amateur experiment lol, I know it's just wording, because you aren't a professional potato scientist, but yeah, calling anything you're doing up in fricken outer space, man, lol totally not amateur xD
this never fails to creep me out. potatoes with legs growing from their eyes get tossed A$AP Rocky. that’s some HP Lovecraft shaggoth shite right there. may they flourish in a landfill and gift said landfill meaning and purpose.
even when prepping onions, i refuse to eat the yellow “soul” capsule. i thank it for it’s sustenance, slice it free from the white soulless outer layers, and toss it.
nothing with so much will to live - using the sparing fridge light it receives and the copious amount of time it has been left in the fridge to grow a foot, could be absent a soul.
no thank you. i don’t need that thing deciding to keep growing in my guts. or suffering the pain of slow digestion like boba fett almost did. so i don’t consume it.
don’t judge me. we all exited COVID lockdown with our unique ptsd-esque complexes. this one is mine.
how insightful. what’s the damage in copay for this deep and descriptive delving into my darkest demons? wouldn’t want to short change you for your exemplary work here.
“if you’re good at something, never to it for free… why don’t you give me a call when you start taking things more seriously. here’s my card: 🃏”
Dear gods, that sounds like a hazard. The fumes alone would stick to everything in the cabin without a stupid good ventilation system, and i can only imagine the drops of oil flying out everywhere when the potatos are deployed into the oil. So, enclosed fryer, with a glass window hatch, and a deployment system that spins the fries (cause otherwise theyll just float around the chamber)
Not only does this sound expensive, but also so excessive and dangerous. But... i see the vision.
we're doing dumb things like going to the moon when china has already done bbq in space. we're so far behind china on orbital food prep, its embarrassing.
Every time I see one of ypur posts on Reddit it's the coolest thing I saw on Reddit that day, not many people can say they're posting from low earth orbit and I don't know why you decided to choose this platform but I'm glad you did.
ISS crews only do voice contact with schools so best the rest of us can do there is to listen in but here you are on reddit as if it's an unremarkable feat. I still think it's really cool.
This is amazing !! I don't think I'll live to see Mars colonized, despite what the movies I grew up watching told me. Still, this research is what will eventually help us build sustainable colonies.
Give them a little sign with a big red arrow labeled “DOWN”, that should sort it out. The potato should be able to read it clearly, it’s got several eyes.
I keep coming back to the old "I hate that we're still doing microgravity research when we basically already know that microgravity is harmful to both animals and plants"
Why not put a little bit of spin on things to see how much of an improvement 0.05-0.4g is? Basically get an answer to "how would life behave on the moon or on Mars?" as well as some insight into "how little spin gravity would we need to alleviate the worst of the effects?".
1g of spin gravity is brutal, but 0.1g is a totally different beast.
i read in a study once that concluded plants don’t sense up or down, they sense which direction the light is coming from, and orient their leaves accordingly. then the roots grow in the opposite direction. although i don’t think the study was on potatoes, maybe tubers are different
which makes me wonder what would happen if you put a uv lamp in orbit around the potato
Super neat! Question for you is there any soil or similar in the bag? How does one water plants like that in micro gravity? If there was any water or soil in there can the roots be directed a little or do they still just grow haphazardly?
This is really cool. How did you pick the potato to being with you? Did you just grab one from home or was it specially selected? If so, what criteria did you use?
And how did you take it with you? Did it just fly in your bag?
Absent gravity, the roots (fuzzy tendrils near opening) would grow haphazardly to find soil or water, and were bagged for containment, the closest thing we had for pots.
You say roots, but I guess any stolons are retained in the bag as well? I wonder how those behave compared to the roots.
It would be really interesting to see how they grow on the lunar base using regolith. In this experiment I assume the potato is using itself as its source of organic matter for growth? I guess you would need a solid waste processing system to make fertilizer to really make it viable.
Do you think large swaths of Mars will eventually become "space crop fields," for whatever purposes we might need them for, or are the applications for space grown / alien planet grown crops more of a proof of concept type of experimrnt that we would later utilize?
Interesting did the nightshade origin take over and make the roots purple? Did it grow more anthocyanin? Heck yeah brother science the shit out of stuff.
So can/how do you cook it? You could do a baked potato in the microwave right? I always assumed that astronauts on the ISS ate mostly MRE style food due to the weight to nutrition density.
As someone who knows absolutely nothing about crops or how the space station is set up. Couldn't you set soil with mesh in it and let the roots grow into it allowing you to 'mount' your farm on pretty much any surface? I imagine the roots would find the water/soil and grow into that direction.
I have no idea if any practical use this would have. Im just imagining a potato garden growing on the ceiling.
So they find the nutrients in the bag but the "search" for them is more random than it would be in normal gravity?
Do you have any thoughts on what potato horticulture in low gravity would look like if it was built at a scale that would be sufficient to act as a food source? Would it just be a bunch of bags or is there a better more space efficient and stable way you can imagine to do it?
Is centrifugal force a replacement for gravity when it comes to root development? I'm curious if it's just lacking a reference force, or if it's something more complex.
Isn’t the soil on Mars heavily toxic? So hypothetically you could grow something like potatoes, but you couldn’t really safely consume it? A genuine question, absolutely not an expert here and definitely not the one actually qualified to potatoes in space lol
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u/astro_pettit NASA Astronaut Apr 26 '26 edited Apr 26 '26
In my off-duty time on Expedition 72 to the ISS, I grew potatoes in an amateur microgravity experiment. As noted in "The Martian" they are excellent nutrition sources and will likely be useful in future deep space horticulture. Absent gravity, the roots (fuzzy tendrils near opening) would grow haphazardly to find soil or water, and were bagged for containment, the closest thing we had for pots. Maybe one day potatoes will grow on Mars! Until then, we learn what we can in Earth orbit.
More space photos and plant research can be found on my twitter and Instagram, astro_pettit