The question of what scientists may ultimately discover on Mars is as nebulous as another that’s dogged space agencies for years: How to feed astronauts on a mission lasting several years.
Experts in this space race for food taste and ultra-convenience recently convened, appropriately, at the Institute of Food Technologists Annual Meeting and Food Expo, the world’s largest annual food science and ingredient conference.
With no interstellar fast food restaurants available, feeding astronauts during a journey to Mars raises nutritional, mechanical, and even psychological issues. Michele Perchonok, a food scientist at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, raised a host of concerns. How does space radiation affect the nutrient composition of food? Will cooking create volatile conditions on board the spacecraft that could prove to be harmful? Will growing crops in recycled water affect their micronutrients?
“We could give the astronauts a pill that meets all their nutritional needs, but how psychologically pleasing would that be?” Perchonok said. “As they go off to space. . .and they know they’re not going to see [Earth] again for two-and-a-half years, highly acceptable food will be an extremely important and familiar element in an unfamiliar and hostile environment.”
Scientists here presented prototypes of some of the first attempts at food preparation equipment for long-duration space missions.
R. Paul Singh, food engineering professor at University of California at Davis, showed the prototype for a fruit and vegetable processing system for advanced life support. It’s designed to process tomatoes—slicing, dicing, crushing, and juicing them for soup, sauce, and paste