This is the first zinnias grown aboard the International Space Station. Via Gizmodo:
Despite fears of over-watering, the crew coaxed the zinnias into a burst of colour in their zero-g vegetable garden.
Zinnias are edible blooming plants that are usually on the easy ends in the spectrum to grow. They’re the second plant to be tested in the space station’s hydroponic VEGGIE lab.
Astronauts taste-tested their previous crop, arugula, last last year.
The orange zinnias were revealed to the world by NASA’s Scott Kelly on Jan 16, and it was a near thing: the zinnias nearly died of mold a few weeks earlier, and the situation was only reversed after NASA botanists on the ground revised their care plan. Unfortunately, the flower was not actually the first grown in space, or even the first flower grown aboard the ISS, despite Scott Kelly’s statement. The first flower grown on the ISS was four years previously, in a private experiment by Don Pettit, and the first flower grown in space was in 1966 aboard the Soviet Union’s biosciences space probe Cosmos 110, which launched in a 22 day uncrewed mission that included plants and a couple of dogs.
Ultimately NASA hopes to supplement astronaut diets with freshly-grown greens, particularly on long haul missions away from Earth, as they not only provide psychological benefits but also assist in atmosphere recycling.