Astronauts orbiting our planet eat lots of different foods, mostly consumed from tubes. However, recently this was the meal aboard China’s Tiangong space station: real-life vegetables they grew themselves in space.
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00:00 When you were a kid you no doubt tried something like this, or what most consider a quintessential
00:08 astronaut food, freeze dried ice cream.
00:11 In reality, astronauts orbiting our planet eat very different things, mostly consumed
00:15 from tubes.
00:16 But recently, this was the meal aboard China's Tiangong space station.
00:20 Real life vegetables they grew themselves in space.
00:23 The process isn't easy, involving the spacefarers pollinating the plants by hand, since there
00:28 aren't any bees in space, right now they're growing cherry tomatoes and some leafy greens.
00:32 But that's not all they're eating.
00:34 New Year's Day included a veritable feast prepared by their colleagues down in mission
00:38 control.
00:39 This marks the end of the second year of China's space station operations, with their space
00:43 program having several important missions related to it.
00:46 They're currently conducting experiments related to physics in combustion, and material
00:50 sciences in microgravity.
00:52 And of course they're continuing their life sciences experimentation, including that related
00:56 to the human body, and of course, growing food in space.
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