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The mystery of the tomato missing in space has finally been solved.
Perhaps more importantly, an innocent man who was wrongly accused of eating fresh fruit while on the International Space Station has been exonerated.
Astronaut Frank Rubio made history in September when he spent 371 days in orbit making him the American with the record for longest space flight. But before he left space on an Earth-bound box, Rubio developed a bit of popularity among his friends — all in good fun, of course.
When Rubio’s batch of tomatoes harvested in March went missing in space, the 47-year-old astronaut was the number one suspect. It took months, but Rubio’s name has finally been cleared.
The NASA crew attended the station a press release Wednesday to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the International Space Station, which they had a commitment to make. Towards the end of the discussion, astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli came up with a recent discovery.
“We may have found something that someone has been looking for for a long time,” Moghbeli said as he and his crew laughed.
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Red tomatoes are part of a NASA experiment
The Red Robin dwarf tomato was questioned as part of March 29 is the outer-Earth harvest.
A part of the Veg-05 modelthis Rubio himself was taken care of such as experiencing a sudden drop in humidityastronauts were asked to eat tomatoes grown under different light treatments and rated them based on things like taste, texture and sweetness.
But before the former Army medic and helicopter pilot could try his part, it floated away in a Ziploc bag somewhere on an empty site much like a six-bedroom house, according to Space.com.
“I spent many hours looking for that,” Rubio joked during a press conference in September with senior NASA officials. “I’m sure the dried tomato will show up at some point and convince me, years in the future.”
‘We found the tomato’
In what may have come as a relief to Rubio, it ended up taking months ‒ not years ‒ to find the elusive tomato.
Rubio, who has long since returned to the world, did not have the pleasure of going on the empty space at the time when he had whatever was left of fruit.
Rubio, a Salvadorian-American who was born in Los Angeles, arrived on September 27 in a remote area of Kazakhstan with the two astronauts he traveled to more than a year earlier. for what they thought would be a six-month mission. However, problems with the Russian Soyuz capsule require a replacement to more than double its stay in space.
Fortunately, his departure does not mean the end of the search for the red tomato. Moghbeli’s admission came Wednesday after NASA Assistant Administrator Bob Cabana asked if the astronauts had discovered something that had been wrong for a long time.
“Our good friend Frank Rubio went home long accused of eating a tomato,” Moghbeli said. “But we can punish him: we found the tomato.”
Eric Lagatta is reporting news and breaking stories for USA TODAY. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com