Vegetables grown in Israel's southern Arava region (archives)
Photo: Shai Rosenzweig
Arava peppers headed to space
NASA, Moshav Ein-Yahav looking for resistant vegetable varieties to be grown by astronauts
Israeli vegetables in space? It's just a matter of time.
The center began cooperating recently with Moshav Ein Yahav in Israel's
southern Arava region in a bid to locate resistant vegetable varieties, which allow the creation of food in extreme conditions in space. Ein Yahav was selected due to the difficult conditions in the Arava as well.
The Kennedy Space Center in Florida operates the Aeroponics project, which aims to allow the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to grow food beyond the bounds of earth.
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According to NASA's PR department, long-term missions in space depend on the ability to produce part of the food independently during the flight. The plant's healthy development requires land, water and light, but in order to allow the production of food in a space shuttle's condition, one must find a way to completely dispense of the land and significantly reduce the amounts of water.
Daniel Lev, CEO of the Yofi Shel Yerakot ("Beauty of Vegetables) association, which markets agricultural produce from Moshav Ein Yahav, says that "the varieties from the Arava are creating an interest in NASA, being seen as suitable for the project's needs.
"The moshav's farmers will be thrilled to share the agricultural knowledge they gained with the project's agriculture people."
