Space Food

Podcast

Space Food

Transcript

The next generation of outer space cuisine. I'm Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

In the future, astronauts may be spending a lot more time in space. For instance, a manned mission to Mars will take almost two years - round-trip. And Jean Hunter, an Agricultural and Biological Engineer at Cornell University, says that they can't take along two years' worth of freeze dried hot dogs and Tang©.

Hunter:
"It costs at least $10,000.00 a pound now to send material into low Earth orbit and it costs many times that much to send any kind of material to Mars, so when missions get long enough, it's more economical to send a farm and grow the food there than to just send the food and throw away the waste."

Dr. Hunter is part of a team that's helping NASA figure out how to do that. She explains that the crops sent into space will have to thrive in small, artificially lit hydroponic farms.

Hunter:
"The crops that work best have to be small in stature, have to be highly productive, and versatile in the kitchen."

Prime candidates include soy, potatoes, wheat, and peanuts. She's working on an elaborate menu based on crops like these. If they can make it both practical and tasty, they hope it will be adopted not only by astronauts, but also by people who want to eat healthy plant-based diets right here on earth.

For the American Association for the Advancement of Science, I’m Bob Hirshon.

Making Sense of the Research

Keeping a crew of astronauts healthy and well-fed for the two years that it will take to travel to Mars and back is a daunting challenge to the engineers planning the trip. It's not practical to send two year's worth of food into space, so the astronauts will have to grow their own. But how? What sort of food can they grow in space? You just heard a NASA engineer discusses different food options, and the studies she's performing to test these foods.

You could consider your choices for food to take on a long trip to Mars, and defend your choices by citing such factors as ease of growth, nutritional value and versatility in recipes. You may also consider what other factors will need to be considered when sending humans on a two-year space trip. How would you design the spaceship to keep the astronauts healthy, both physically and mentally?

Now try to answer the following questions:

1. How long will a manned mission to Mars take, round trip?
2. Why is it impractical to send two years’ worth of food into space?
3. How much does it cost to send a pound of material into low Earth orbit?
4. What alternatives is Dr. Jean Hunter studying in order to help feed the astronauts?
5. What kinds of crops would work best in small, artificially lit hydroponic farms?

Going Further

For a lesson on designing space stations, visit the Science NetLinks lesson entitled, Designing a Space Station.

For a related interactive lesson, go to Living in Space: Design a Space Station, part of the CosmicQuest website from the Children's Museum of Indianapolis. This online activity asks you to design a spacestation that will best provide for astronauts' physical and mental health.

To extend your understanding of what it might be like to live in outer space, go to the Space Colony Designers section of NASA’s Orbital Space Settlement website.