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Hello, this is Six Minute English from BBC Learning English.
I'm Neil.
And I'm Georgina.
Last November, NASA launched a very unusual home delivery service,
a rocket carrying four tons of supplies to the ISS, the International Space Station.
Among the scientific equipment were 12 bottles of red wine from the famous Bordeaux region off France.
The astronauts might have wanted a glass of wine with dinner,
but the real purpose of the bottles was to explore the possibility of producing food and drinking space, not for astronauts, but for people back on Earth.
In today's programme we'll be finding out how growing plants in space can develop crops,
which are more productive and more resistant to climate change here on Earth.
And we'll hear how plants can grow in environments with little or no natural light.
But first today's quiz question, what was the first food grown in space?
Was it A, potatoes, B, lettuce or sea tomatoes?
Mmm, well in the film The Martian, a stranded astronaut grows potatoes on Mars.
I know it's only a film, but I'll say A, potatoes.
Okay, we'll find out the answer later.
Now, you might be wondering how it's possible to grow plants without natural light.
British company vertical future has been working on this problem by developing indoor farming methods in partnership with NASA.