Whitson during VEG-03 Harvesting and Cleaning

iss050e050335 (2/17/2017) --- NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson during harvesting and cleaning of VEG-03, in the Node 2. Organisms grow differently in space, from single-celled bacteria to plants and humans. But future long-duration space missions will require crew members to grow their own food, so understanding how plants respond to microgravity is an important step toward that goal. Veg-03 uses the Veggie plant growth facility to cultivate a type of cabbage, which is harvested in orbit with samples returned to Earth for testing.