NASA is growing space chile peppers on the ISS — and astronauts will taste them – CNET [CNET]

July 15, 2021 Thomas Giboney technology

This week, NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough added water to the Plant Habitat-04 (PH-04) experiment to start the seeds in orbit after they arrived on a SpaceX cargo ship in June.

Peppers aren’t an instant-gratification plant. It will take about four months to see them through harvest. “It is one of the most complex plant experiments on the station to date because of the long germination and growing times,” said PH-04 principal investigator Matt Romeyn.

Here on Earth, we eat Hatch chiles in a couple of different ways. When harvested green, we roast them with fire, peel off the skin and use them chopped or in sauces or recipes. Leave them on the plant and they turn red. We usually let the red ones dry and then powder them for sauces and flavoring.

There’s no chile roaster on the ISS, but that won’t stop the peppers from going down the hatch. “The plan is for crew to eat some of the peppers and send the rest back to Earth for analysis, as long as all the data indicates they are safe for the crew to eat,” NASA said.