For the first time, astronauts ate their very first vegetable harvested in space this week. How'd it taste?

"Good, kinda like arugula,” Scott Kelly said as he and fellow International Space Station crew members Kjell Lindgren and Kimiya Yui chowed down on the crop of “Outredgrous” red romaine lettuce leaves.

NASA scientists said the ability to grow fresh food in space is one of the critical first steps on man’s quest to travel to Mars. (And eating red lettuce en route to the red planet can't hurt, right?)

NASA also couldn't resist saying this:

Astronauts eating salad in space One small bite for a man, one giant leaf for mankind. First astronauts to eat food grown in space. #JourneyToMars https://t.co/Wo95swzqIK — NASA (@NASA) August 10, 2015



And here is the crew at work, or rather lunch.



Bon appétit! Watch as astronauts take the first bites of space-grown lettuce. #JourneyToMars https://t.co/7l8LHLT7nO — Intl. Space Station (@Space_Station) August 10, 2015 And here is the crew at work, or rather lunch.

NASA said the crew first cleaned the red lettuce leaves with a citric-based acid food sanitizing wipes before eating about half of the bounty. The rest will be frozen and brought back to Earth for further analysis.

The experiment, called Veg-01, featured plants being grown in the microgravity of space under red, blue and green LED lights. It is a significant step toward the future of space exploration because it's a critical part of NASA’s Journey to Mars and also could be enable astronauts to garden recreationally during deep space missions.

This lettuce, which is grown in rooting "pillows," that contain the seeds, was started by Kelly on July 8 and grown for 33 days.

In addition to its romaine seeds, the crew also had one pack of zinnia seeds.

Dr. Gioia Massa, the NASA payload scientist for the vegetable experiment, said that beside there are obvious health benefits to eating fresh food in space and added, "The farther and longer humans go away from Earth, the greater the need to be able to grow plants for food, atmosphere recycling and psychological benefits."

So what was the reaction on Earth?