TORONTO - In the cult movie classic Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, mutant
vegetables cut a deadly swath through the community, consuming everyone in their
path.
 But Canadian astronaut Bob Thirsk says Toronto students cultivating tomato
seeds from space shouldn’t worry about like imitating art.
 “There should be no fear on the part of teachers or parents about any toxic fruit
growing from these tomato plants,” said Thirsk, who flew aboard the shuttle
Columbia on a 17-day mission in 1996.
 He said he’ll eat tomatoes produced from the high-flying seeds or use them to
make salsa or ketchup.
 Thirsk visited students at St. Cecillia Catholic School on Annette St. yesterday to
check up on their experiments with tomato seeds taken into space by astronaut
Mark Garneau.
 The Tomatosphere project involves 2,500 secondary school classrooms across
Canada growing 400,000 seeds, half of which made the trip to space. Space plants
are said to grow faster and taller.
 “The space-flown seeds made 170 orbits of the Earth, travelled more than 7
million kilometers and spent 12 days weightless,” Thirsk said.
 At the end of June, schools will send results of their experiment to the Canadian
Space Agency which will compile the date and make conclusions.
 Thirsk said the program is designed to introduce space science to young
Canadians. “I can see that in these classrooms we have potential future Canadian
scientists and astronauts,” he said. “I find that incredibly exciting.”