Our older readers must have watched the Soviet science fiction film “Dream Towards” of 1963 and surely remember the words from the song that sounded in this film “Astronauts and dreamers say that Mars will bloom apple trees”. Unfortunately, I still have to wait a bit before the apple trees on Mars, but the matter, believe me, is moving towards this! For the first time in the history of cosmonautics, a flower has bloomed on the International Space Station.
Astronaut Scott Kelly from the ISS reported on his Twitter page that the first ever orange zinnia flower was grown at the station. The cultivation of the flower took place in the Veggie portable greenhouse specially brought to the station.
Zinnia is the second plant that scientists choose to test for their ability to grow in zero gravity. The first plant, we recall, was lettuce grown in the same portable greenhouse, which after ripening was eaten by the crew of the ISS last year. This time, astronomers decided to try to conduct the same experiment, but with ornamental plants.
"The first flower blossomed in space!", - said Scott Kelly on his page on Twitter.
“Yes, there are other forms of life in space,” Kelly joked a bit later.
It should be noted that an experiment on growing flowers in space to observe their reproduction in zero gravity conditions was conducted last December. However, it ended in failure. The second experiment was, as we see, much more successful.
The article is based on materials .
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