Late in September, NASA astronaut Frank Rubio deplaned from the International Space Station (ISS) following an unprecedented 371 consecutive days in orbit.
Rubio orbited Earth approximately 5,936 times over the course of his protracted mission, traversing a distance of over 157 million miles... while unintentionally misplacing a solitary tomato.
VEG-05 was an endeavor undertaken by Rubio as a member of the International Space Station crew to determine whether or not red robin tomatoes could flourish in outer space.
The inch-long tomatoes were harvested after one hundred days of cultivation; however, NASA states that while the astronauts were permitted to inspect them, they were not permitted to consume them due to the possibility of fungal contamination.
Rubio's tomato sample somehow drifted away in the low-gravity environment and was not recovered until after his mission had lasted for over a year.
Rubio's name has been vindicated, however, after months of ridicule regarding his consumption of the absent tomato.
Even though Mogbeli did not divulge further information regarding who discovered the tomato or where on the space station it was situated, the enigma has been resolved.
when one of his fellow astronauts hosted a school event, he decided to retrieve the object from its storage area in order to exhibit it.
Rubio acknowledged devoting "eighteen to twenty hours" to the search for the vegetable within the ISS's expansive floor area, which is comparable in size to a six-bedroom residence.