The man growing lettuce for space station salads

KATHMANDU: AUGUST 13 – Frank Morton was sitting with a friend in New York, about to fly home to Oregon after attending an event for plant breeders and chefs. “Hey, look at this,” his friend said. “They’ve grown lettuce on the space station.” She was looking at her phone, he recalls. He asked, what kind? It didn’t say exactly. They both thought that was an interesting novelty.

It wasn’t until Morton saw a photo of the lettuce in question in a magazine sometime later that it hit him: He knew just what that lettuce was. It was his own invention, a zany burgundy plant he’d dubbed Outredgeous. Its seeds could be purchased from a major seed catalogue by backyard gardeners and Nasa researchers alike, and indeed, when Morton got in touch with the research team behind the experiment, that was exactly what they’d done.