NASA astronaut 'exonerated' after tomato lost in space is found months later

09 December 2023 , 04:20

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NASA astronaut Frank Rubio checks tomato plants inside the International Space Station (Image: Koichi Wakata/Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency/NASA)

A NASA astronaut has been 'exonerated' after a tomato lost in space was found months later.

Frank Rubio was cleared of blame after a tomato that went missing in space was found months later. He had been accused of losing or even eating one of the first tomatoes ever grown in space, which led to hours of searching on the space station.

Rubio planned to show the tomato to school children during a public event and was even jokingly accused by his colleagues of secretly eating it. However, the mystery of the missing space tomato has finally been solved. Rubio said: "I put it in a little bag, and one of my crewmates was doing a (public) event with some schoolkids, and I thought it'd be kind of cool to show the kids - 'Hey guys, this is the first tomato harvested in space!'"

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In space, where astronauts rely on freeze-dried food for months on end, a fresh tomato grown under plant lights is a treasure. But good intentions can sometimes go wrong. "I was pretty confident that I Velcroed it where I was supposed to Velcro it... and then I came back, and it was gone," continued Rubio.

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Anything not tied down in space can float away and get lost in the vastness of the International Space Station. Rubio spent hours looking for the missing tomato. He added: "Unfortunately - because that's just human nature - a lot of people are like, 'He probably ate the tomato'."

NASA astronaut Frank Rubio checks tomato plants inside the International Space Station (Koichi Wakata/Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency/NASA)

"I wanted to find it mostly so I could prove like I did not eat the tomato," joked the respected astronaut. But despite searching for between eight and 20 hours, he never found it.

Rubio returned to Earth on September 27, leaving the missing tomato behind on the space station. He thought it had probably shrivelled and rotted by the time he got back.

However, during a news conference on Wednesday, the remaining seven-person crew on the space station revealed they had finally found the tomato. "Rubio had 'been blamed for quite a while for eating the tomato,'" said NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli, "But we can exonerate him."

The astronauts didn't reveal where the tomato was found or what state it was in. Rubio had guessed in October that it might have shrivelled into an unrecognisable rot due to the humidity at the space station. "it probably desiccated to the point where you couldn't tell what it was," he said. He thought the case was closed after that.

The tomatoes were grown without soil using hydroponic techniques to demonstrate space agricultural methods (Koichi Wakata/Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency/NASA)

Rubio's return to Earth in September was a historic moment. His stay on the space station, which lasted more than a year, set a record for the longest a US astronaut has ever spent in microgravity.

Originally, Rubio planned to spend only six months aboard the International Space Station. However, he ended up staying 371 days after a coolant leak was discovered in his original ride, a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, while it was docked to the orbiting outpost. In an interview in October, Rubio admitted that parts of the journey were tough.

"I kind of allowed myself a day to feel sad and sorry for myself, and then I try to really make a conscious decision to say OK let's have a good attitude and let's just try to do the best job possible," Rubio said when he learned that his mission would be extended by months.

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S P Jones