Funday Friday: #57--The Flower from the Future! | NASA Astronauts Successfully Grow Flower at the International Space Station

(This story is from last week, but I still want to discuss it here this week)
Hey everyone. I'm Andrew with another edition of Funday Friday.

Space and the universe has always been a wide bastion of wonder and amazement. Every time we look up or look far into the skies, we get a beautiful sight ever time--especially with binoculars or a telescope. Whether upon your own accord or from space itself, or from the astronauts above. And it gets better when you're actually an astronaut.

This past year has seen many amazing experiments and discoveries from up above, like a lunar rover landing on a comet, actual water found on Mars via a frozen waterfall, Pluto actually being a planet again. There were so many mind-blowing finds by NASA that a documentary needs to be made
(It's probably being made right now).

This is a zinnia flower that was grown by astronaut Scott Kelly and his team of other astronauts inside the International Space Station. It took nearly two years for Kelly and co. to grow edible plants in the Station by microgravity. In a post on Twitter, Kelly revealed a problem with the experiment--mold on the leaves.

Our plants aren't looking too good. Would be a problem on Mars. I'm going to have to channel my inner Mark Watney. pic.twitter.com/m30bwCKA3w

— Scott Kelly (@StationCDRKelly) December 27, 2015

He later found a way to save the plants and-after a few failed cycles-put the experiment on, leading to the first successfully blooming bunch of zinnia flowers grown in space.

First ever flower grown in space makes its debut! #SpaceFlower #zinnia #YearInSpace pic.twitter.com/2uGYvwtLKr

— Scott Kelly (@StationCDRKelly) January 16, 2016

This isn't the only time the NASA team worked on organically growing fresh, edible food.
In 2014, astronauts Gioia D. Massa, Robert C. Morrow, Ph.D. and Raymond M. Wheeler have worked on Veggie, a system that helps grow fresh vegetables aeroponically -- meaning, in an air or mist environment without soil ("Plants grown aeroponically require far less water and fertilizer, don't need pesticide, are much less prone to disease, and grow up to three times faster than plants grown in soil", NASA said in a statement.) and in 2012, astronaut Don Pettit successfully grew a zucchini, sunflower and broccoli out of zip-lock plastic bags on the ISS as personal science experiment. Pettit documented the life of his "companions" in a NASA blog called "Diary of Space Zucchini". Some have argued that a sunflower grown in that year was the first flower grown.

In a blog post on the zinnia blossoming, it said that this was the "first time a flowering crop experiment will be grown on the orbiting laboratory". And on Veggie, "I hope to see Veggie's success as the first step in food production that will allow astronauts on the space station to enjoy fresh food and gain knowledge as we explore beyond low-Earth orbit," said Brian Onate, who helped build the plant growth system before it went into space.

This is absolutely awesome. A flower growing in space, where this isn't much water, seeds, air or sunlight. But the NASA team tried it in an unconventional way, and did it successfully.
It's yet another experiment and discovery made by the great folks and geniuses at NASA, always working hard to give us the increasing possibility of life beyond Earth and unlocking beautiful wonders for us all to behold for now and in the future.

Special thanks to CNN for the week+ old post used for this edition.

Have a great weekend, everyone -- and to quote the great Jack Horkheimer aka Star Gazer (may he rest in peace), that guy that amazingly taught us about astronomy on the PBS stations back in the day and inspiration for my catchphrase of my review of Star vs. The Forces of Evil --
"Keep looking Up!"