{"id":767847,"date":"2023-10-04T16:48:44","date_gmt":"2023-10-04T20:48:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=767847"},"modified":"2023-10-04T16:48:44","modified_gmt":"2023-10-04T20:48:44","slug":"fresh-chiles-spice-up-taco-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=767847","title":{"rendered":"Fresh Chiles Spice Up Taco Night"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"\" class=\"hds-media hds-module wp-block-image\">\n<div class=\"margin-left-auto margin-right-auto nasa-block-align-inline\">\n<div class=\"hds-media-wrapper margin-left-auto margin-right-auto\">\n<figure class=\"hds-media-inner hds-cover-wrapper hds-media-ratio-fit \"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/iss066e083715.jpg\" class=\"attachment-full size-full\" alt=\"Astronaut Raja Chari is ready for taco night\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"object-position: 50% 50%;object-fit: cover\" \/><\/figure><figcaption class=\"hds-caption padding-y-2\">\n<div class=\"hds-caption-text p-sm margin-0\">Astronaut Raja Chari is ready for taco night as he shows off a taco made with fresh chile peppers.<\/div>\n<div class=\"hds-credits\">NASA\/Kayla Barron<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Taco Night on the International Space Station had a little kick to it on Nov. 26, 2021. In this image taken by NASA astronaut <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/people\/kayla-barron\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Kayla Barron<\/a>, fellow NASA astronaut and Expedition 66 flight engineer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/people\/raja-chari\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Raja Chari<\/a> smiles as he shows off a taco that includes fresh chile peppers.<\/p>\n<p>The peppers were harvested from inside the International Space Station\u2019s Advanced Plant Habitat, which started growing four months prior as part of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/missions\/station\/iss-research\/advanced-plant-habitat\/chile-peppers-start-spicing-up-the-space-station\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Plant Habitat-04 experiment<\/a>. Astronauts on station and a team of researchers at Kennedy worked together to check the peppers\u2019 growth. This was one of the longest and most challenging plant experiments tried aboard the orbital lab.<\/p>\n<p>Starting in late 2015 and going into early 2016,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/image-feature\/first-flower-grown-in-space-stations-veggie-facility\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">astronauts grew zinnias on station<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 a precursor to growing longer-duration, fruit-bearing, flowering crops like peppers. Researchers spent two years evaluating more than two dozen pepper varieties from around the world. They narrowed it down and selected the NuMex \u2018Espa\u00f1ola Improved\u2019 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. This pepper performed well in testing and had the makings of a viable space crop.<\/p>\n<p><em>Image Credit: NASA\/Kayla Barron<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&#013;<br \/>\n&#013;<br \/>\n&#013;<br \/>\n Click here for original story, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/image-article\/fresh-chiles-spice-up-taco-night\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Fresh Chiles Spice Up Taco Night<\/a>&#013;<br \/>\n&#013;<br \/>\n&#013;<br \/>\nSource: NASA Breaking News&#013;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Astronaut Raja Chari is ready for taco night as he shows off a taco made with fresh chile peppers. NASA\/Kayla Barron Taco Night on the International Space Station had a&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":767848,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-767847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-NASA"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=767847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/767848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=767847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=767847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=767847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}