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Salad is good for you, generally speaking, so growing fresh greens in orbit seems like a winning way for space farers to stay healthy. New research suggests that as nutritious as space salad might be, it could pose something of a risk to astronauts.
The problem is growing leafy plants like lettuce and spinach in space can come with a side dish of bacteria, according to a new study from a team at the University of Delaware. In tests on plants grown in simulated microgravity, they were shown to actually be more susceptible than normal to the Salmonella enterica pathogen.
Interesting
I guess some of the plants natural defences rely on gravity, so without them they’re more susceptible (till we can breed a better variant)
They’re also way lower genetic diversity in anything you grow in space.
Sounds like not a big problem at all. Seems like they’ll just have to use appropriate cleaning methods. Even in the worst case scenario they would probably just have to use food irradiation.
https://www.fda.gov/food/buy-store-serve-safe-food/food-irradiation-what-you-need-know
EDIT
In fact reading my own link i learned that they ALREADY irradiate food that astronauts eat
We know that the International Space Station (ISS) is home to a lot of aggressive bacteria and fungi
Damn, TILd
It seems that space ecosystems are underdeveloped.
