While NASA engineers toil
away with spacecraft designs to determine how humans will explore the
moon and Mars, other researchers are developing devices to help future
astronauts feed their hunger.
Future long-duration space
crews may need up to 40 different food processing machines to turn
crops such as wheat and tomatoes into edible foods like bread and cereals, NASA
officials estimated.
"As we go on to
longer-duration missions, it makes sense to become a little more self-sufficient
with our food," said Michele Perchonok, a food scientist at NASA's Johnson
Space Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas, in a telephone interview. "The ultimate
way of doing that is growing crops and processing them into
food."
But the challenge lies in
keeping space food equipment small, light and easy to maintain during a two-year
Mars trip, said Perchonok, the advanced food technology lead for the
National Space Biology Research Institute at JSC.
"Some of the other
challenges reside in making sure the food that is produced is safe, nutritious
and acceptable," she added.
In-flight meals
Aboard
the International Space Station (ISS), astronauts eat ready-made meals
out of cans and pouches with a limited supply of fresh fruits and
vegetables shipped up periodically aboard Russian supply ships. Coffee,
tea, Tang and other beverages are typically in dried form to be mixed with
water.
Most food items are
pre-cooked on Earth before being shipped to the refrigerator-less ISS galley in
the Russian Zvezda service module, where astronauts can warm food using an
electric oven.
"It's about the size of a
briefcase, and there are little slots where you can put the food," Perchonok
said of the oven, adding that it doesn't get too hot.
Ohio State University food
engineer Sudhir Sastry has developed a prototype for reheating food in space by
including the heater directly into an items packaging. Sastry equipped a package
with electrodes in order to warm up food using a method called ohmic heating.
"Basically you're passing a
current through the food product itself to heat it up internally," Sastry told
SPACE.com, adding that once the meal
is consumed the package can be reused to sterilize biological waste and
other refuse. "It's better food quality from the get go."
Food engineer Paul Singh,
of the University of California at Davis, built a prototype device that
processes tomatoes into pretty much any form needed for a meal during a mission
to Mars to beyond.
"It's a tomato processing
plant, a benchtop device that slices, dices cuts and purees," Perchonok said,
adding that a space food processor must be both multi-purpose and
miniaturized.
For his part, ISS
Expedition 10 flight engineer Salizhan Sharipov - currently living aboard the
space station - said before launch that he would miss cooking in
his own kitchen during the six-month mission but looked forward to life in
orbit.
Greenhouse
effects
Astronauts on a future
Mars-bound spacecraft will also likely also grow at least some of their food.
But finding the right mixture of crops and understanding their effects on both
crew and spacecraft are necessary concerns.
"It's probably two issues
that we're concerned with," Paul Larrat, a University of Rhode
Island researcher, told SPACE.com. "One is what these
compounds will do to humans in space environments and they other is what they'll
do to other plants."
Larrat worked
with Advanced Life Support Center scientists at NASA's Kennedy Space
Center in Florida to determine how small amounts of gases emitted by plants can
affect their spacecraft surroundings.
"It's more than just
turning carbon dioxide into oxygen," Larrat said. "There are minute quantities
of other gases that on Earth you'd never think
about."
On Earth, those gases would
simply dissipate in the wide open sky, but not aboard an enclosed spacecraft.
The gases from lettuce, for
example, may hinder the growth of radishes and impact the food source from
within, Larrat said. Meanwhile, a future Mars crew would be living in close
quarters with its food supply, so astronauts would have to be carefully
screened for allergens to make sure they weren't allergic to any of the
onboard plants, he added.
Perchonok said NASA
researchers are also tackling other food fronts, including plans to grow peanuts
and soy to extract oil and culling syrup from sweet potatoes as an alternative
to stocking up on sugar before a long-duration
launch.
Interesting
eats
Keeping astronauts
interested - and satisfied - with their food is another prime target
for current and future missions.
"They can't just go out and
pick up something they want," Perchonok said. "They can't just go to
McDonald's."
Admittedly, space food was
rather primitive in NASA's early days, leaving much to be desired in both
appearance and taste, researchers said.
"They started with tubed
foods squeezed out like toothpaste and cubes that were like sandwiches coated in
gelatin," Perchonok said. "But the flavor...well, you're at that psychology
where it didn't feel like food anymore."
By the later Gemini and
Apollo missions, the space agency had shifted to what most people consider real
food, leading to the preparation systems aboard the space shuttle and ISS today.
Using astronaut taste testers, NASA food researchers add between three and six
new items a year to the agency's space menu.
"I think we can go a lot
further than where we are now," Perchonok said, adding that still more
improved food packaging and processing have yet to be developed. "There's a lot
for us to do, and we're going to go forward and do it."
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