The Smarter Way to Cut Watermelon to Make It Perfect for Summer Snacking

Header image: Suited up to simulate the conditions of working outside on Mars. Jonathan Clarke (the author, left) with visiting engineer Michael Curtis-Rouse, from UK Space Agency (right). Jonathan Clarke personal collection, Author provided.

From the moment humans started to reach for the skies, we have used other species from Earth to test what’s safe and what happens to life away from its natural habitat on the planet’s surface. 

Header image: Chimpanzee Ham with Trainers. Image credit: NASA

Growing lettuce on the Moon is a step closer, as a French start-up has successfully grown lettuce in simulated lunar soil.

One of the stories that I read as a child that has stayed with me is The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett. For a long time I had a copy on my bookshelf, but when I had the urge to read it last week I discovered that was no longer the case. Fortunately it’s easy enough to find a free copy, particularly as it’s part of the new range of free Amazon Kindle Classics, which you can read via the free Amazon Kindle app – you don’t need an actual Kindle.

In 2004, ESA challenged French chefs to come up with gourmet recipes for space travellers on Mars and other planets. They were limited by what could feasibly be grown on Mars, with extra ingredients (such as extra vegetables, herbs, oil, butter, seasonings and sugar) shipped from Earth.

Header image: One of the Vanguard satellites being checked out at Cape Canaveral, Florida in 1958. NASA

I was out in the potting shed yesterday morning and sowed the first seeds of my 2019 gardening season – sweet peppers, leeks, purple sprouting broccoli and some salads. They’ll all be inside for the next few weeks, as although the weather is unseasonably warm, it cannot be relied upon.

It’s hot, it’s humid, and I am longing for the shorter, cooler and damper days of autumn. My forays into the garden are brief; I am grateful that it has rained enough recently for me to avoid having to water. I am still waiting for the courgettes to produce edible fruit, but the climbing French beans (‘Helda’) are producing a handful every few days, and they are delicious.

What kind of traveller are you? Do you prefer to lie in a hammock slung between two palm trees, reading the latest blockbuster novel? Or would I find you soaking up the local culture along with the sun? I’m more of the latter, and it helps to know a smattering of the local language if you go off the beaten track!

Thomas Pesquet’s Alpha mission is about to bloom! The ESA astronaut will soon be growing flowers on the International Space Station, in an experiment called “Graines d’Eklo”.

One of the things that fascinate me is how astronauts from different cultures take different foods into space. When French astronaut Thomas Pesquet blasts off to the ISS later this month, for example, he’s taking four French meals specially created by a Michelin-starred chef. (Including a truffled pie of potatoes and onions from Roscoff, slow-cooked beef with mushroom sauce, almond tart with caramelised pears, and a freeze-dried cherry tomato dish. Heston Blumenthal created the first space bacon sandwich for Tim Peake.)