Hatch, New Mexico, has prided itself in growing the best red and green chile in the nation. But chile grown in space is apparently out of this world.
New Mexico state officials recently praised a NASA team that successfully grew New Mexico chile in space. “These peppers have the best combination of performance and flavor in the nearly two dozen types we’ve tested,” said Matt Romeyn, Principal Investigator, Plant Habitat 04, told KRQE.
New Mexico Agriculture Secretary Jeff Wittee apparently agreed. His department presented certificates to the Plant Habitat 04 team to commemorate its growing 48 red and green chile peppers in the International Space Station.
Hatch chile pepper seeds arrived at the space station in June 2021 as part of a commercial resupply services mission. They were planted in a device called a science carrier that slots into the Advanced Plant Habitat (APH), one of the three plant growth chambers on the orbiting laboratory. “It is one of the most complex plant experiments on the station to date because of the long germination and growing times,” Matt Romeyn, principal investigator for PH-04, said when the experiment began.
Researchers spent two years evaluating more than two dozen pepper varieties from around the world before selecting the NuMex ‘Española Improved’ pepper, a hybrid Hatch pepper, the generic name for several varieties of chiles from Hatch, New Mexico, and the Hatch Valley in southern New Mexico.
NASA said the peppers took about four months to grow before astronauts harvested them, eating some and sending some back to Earth for analysis. The experiment was part of NASA’s goal to sustain crews on long missions that don’t have many or any opportunities for resupply.