What will we eat on the Moon? The food is literally out of this world

The Moon may be the final frontier for humanity, but what will we eat once we get there? Pastas and protein bars made from scratch are just the beginning.

Space fever is approaching at dizzying speed. Over the next two years, NASA plans to send astronauts back to the Moon via its Artemis Program; The International Space Station (ISS), designed to remain in orbit for 15 years but now in its 26th year in space, will soon be replaced; and scientists are seriously investigating the possibility of manned missions to deep space. Add to this a proliferation of skyrocketing tourism projects individuals to the ends of space and that raises a question for a food writer like me: what are we going to eat once we get there?

“Food is something that keeps astronauts sane,” says Dr. Sonja Brungs, deputy head of astronaut operations at the European Space Agency. “Good food, appropriate food, a wide variety, tailored to the needs of each astronaut is crucial for a successful deep space mission. I think people underestimate how important that is.”

Currently, astronauts are given small food bags containing prepared meals. These meals are developed by specialized food companies then freeze-dried, dehydrated or thermostabilized. Astronauts add water to heat or cool meals to eat; they can also take a special meal that reminds them of home (this should also be carefully formulated and heat-stabilized).

There are a few caveats: anything that is crumbs, like bread, cannot be taken into space, because crumbs can easily become airborne in a low gravity environment, which means that They could be inhaled or enter vital equipment. Salt is limited because the body stores sodium differently in space, leading to accelerated osteoporosisand alcohol is also banned because it affects the ISS’s wastewater recycling system.

“Newness is definitely a problem,” Brungs says. “Astronauts who stay in space for only six months lack crunch and texture. Having a variety of textures is very important for mental well-being, and especially for deep space missions, d ‘have a variety of foods to eat.’

In 2021, NASA launched a Deep Space Food Challenge discover new ways to create food in space with limited resources, producing minimal waste, while providing safe, nutritious and tasty food capable of supporting a long-term mission in deep space.

Helsinki-based Solar Foods is one of eight companies that reached the final stage of the challenge. Their remarkable concept: using space junk to create proteins.

“We literally make food from scratch,” says Artuu Luukanen, Solar Foods senior vice president for space and defense. His company discovered an edible microbe in the Finnish countryside that grows by feeding on a mixture of carbon dioxide, hydrogen and oxygen. The result is a source of protein from bacteria. Protein can be mixed with a range of flavors or textures to create different types of nutritious foods, such as pastas, protein bars, alternative meats and even an egg replacer.

“We started thinking about space food because in any space habitat you have two key waste gases: hydrogen and carbon dioxide,” Luukanen said. “So what we’re talking about here is not just a food manufacturing technology for space, but something that will be an integral part of the environmental control and life support system.”

Solar Foods’ proteins can be made into a paste or powder and mixed with flour and more typical food ingredients to create protein-enriched foods such as pasta, protein bars and even chocolate. Experiments are continuing to find out if it can be mixed with oils and made into something with the texture of steak, using a 3D printer.

Fresh foods are also a consideration: while vitamin tablets can help, astronauts need fresh produce, and experiments continue on how to grow vegetables in this unique weightless, sunless environment. The ISS has its own small vegetable garden on board, known as the VegetarianOr astronauts study plant growth in microgravity.

Back on Earth, Interstellar Laboratory in Merritt Island, Florida, developed a modular bioregenerative system to produce microgreens, vegetables, mushrooms and even insects; the company is also a finalist in the NASA Deep Space Food Challenge, alongside Enigma of the cosmos in Melbourne, Australia, a company working on a way to efficiently grow microgreens in space.

One thing that seems likely is that the future of space food will include mushrooms. Three of the six finalists in the NASA Deep Space Food Challenge are working on ideas around mushrooms, including Mycorena of Gothenburg, Sweden, who developed a system using a combination of microalgae and fungi to produce mycoprotein (a type of protein from a fungus, often used in alternative meat products).

“Mushrooms are very versatile,” says Carlos Otero, who works in Mycorena’s R&D team. “It can grow on different substrates, it grows quickly and you can design a small and efficient system that can produce enough food for the crew. It’s also very robust, resistant to radiation and easy to store and transport.”

This space food is entirely in a closed-loop circular system, with a final product that can be 3D printed to create a food much like the texture of a chicken fillet. An added benefit is that their protein source contains all the essential amino acids the human body needs to function.

As opportunities increase for private companies to enter the space race, so do opportunities for private chefs. Chef Rasmus Munk of the Michelin-starred restaurant Alchemist in Copenhagen is one of several projects ready to take off. Munk recently announced a partnership with EspaceVIP to offer an immersive dining experience on Space Perspective’s Neptune spacecraft, where tickets cost £397,000 ($495,000) per person for a six-hour journey to the edge of space.

He’s one of many chefs who see the potential in catering to deep-pocketed tourists on commercial spaceflights. But while it’s easy to view these developments as reserved for a very small number of people who can afford such a trip (or do it as an astronaut), the development of space food is not just about what we will eat in zero gravity, but what we might end up eating on our own planet. The NASA Deep Space Food Challenge was also designed to create advanced food systems that will benefit us on Earth, opening new avenues for food production in extreme environments and resource-scarce areas.

“We face big challenges when it comes to climate change, especially with regard to droughts which influence our food production capacities,” says Luukanen. “Space puts this to an ultimate test, where we take resources that are considered waste from other activities and transform them into a value-added product. This is a circular economy philosophy. The Earth is the best spaceship we have ever boarded and its resources are limited.

For Kristina Karlsson, R&D manager at Mycorena, the same principle applies: “Our project aims for resource efficiency on Earth as well as in space,” she says. “There are almost no emissions, and almost no waste. Space is just an extreme environment where we can challenge the development of this kind of project: if it works there, It will work on Earth.”

The third phase of NASA’s Deep Space Food Challenge is underway this summer and aims to further test how these projects could work in space-like conditions. This is something to watch closely: while it’s almost certain that these new foods will be part of an astronaut’s nutritional profile in space, it also seems likely that they will also influence the way we eat on Earth in the future.

BBC.com The world table “breaks the kitchen ceiling” by changing the way the world views food, across the past, present and future.

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