Cucumbers: A new space delicacy

Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is headed up to the international space station for five and a half months. While there, he'll be conducting a variety of experiments, including a detailed study of growing cucumbers — space cucumbers, if you will.

Growing food in space is an important scientific experiment if we ever hope to send humanity on long space missions away from Earth. Astronauts will be forced to grow their own food as they go to Mars, and they'll need to know what to expect in that process well beforehand. You don't want to be a billion miles away and find out that your crop of vegetables just died. 

Furukawa will be paying close attention to the plant hormone Auxin during his experiments. This hormone controls the way a plant grows and behaves while it's developing — a very important thing during that trip to Mars. Scientists hope to find a way to produce the best crop yield in microgravity and find out any adverse effects that might be present in a space cucumber's development.

Unfortunately, Furukawa won't be able to eat any of the cucumbers ... they're all going right to the science lab.

[Image credit: Wikimedia Commons]

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