Craig Technologies’ Lashelle Spencer Plays Key Role On NASA Martian Veggie Team
By Space Coast Daily // October 15, 2015
BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA – At NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, the work of Craig Technologies scientists as part of the Engineering Services Contract (ESC) is not science-fiction, but technology being used by real astronauts.
Growing plants and vegetables in space has received a lot of face time from the recent release of the blockbuster film “The Martian,” and the NASA Veggie team has made this technology possible.
This technology will go a long way in researching human survival in space, and one day a manned mission to Mars.
Craig Technologies employee Lashelle Spencer, is a chemist who works on the NASA Veggie team and is responsible for the phytonutrient analysis of produce grown on the International Space Station and on Earth.
“I am helping to answer the question, ‘does the nutrient content of produce grown in micro gravity differ from that grown terrestrially?’ I also lend support with ground research activities which most recently include Veggie plant pillows for launch to the ISS,” said Spencer.
Spencer was also the ESC Technical Primary Investigator for the Human Research Program, where the goal was to harvest and chemically analyze various dwarf tomatoes and peppers to help determine the next crop to be grown by Veggie.
ABOVE VIDEO: Following up on the milestone of astronauts eating lettuce grown in space, researchers at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida demonstrated the Veg-01, or Veggie, experiment for center employees recently. The event featured lettuce grown at Kennedy in identical conditions to the plants grown inside the International Space Station.