The race is on to develop space food for Mars and it could change how we eat on Earth – National Post

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Space food innovators need to think about questions we take for granted on Earth: How long is a day? What air pressure is it? Will there be soil? Are there insects?

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Birthday cakes took a different form aboard the International Space Station (ISS) under Chris Hadfields command. Using alternating layers of peanut butter, honey and the maple syrup he had brought with him from Canada, the astronauts stacked tortillas 25 high. Especially versatile in space, tortillas dont crumb like bread or cake; since theyre heat-treated and packaged in an oxygen-free environment, they can last for 18 months.

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Because it was all stuck together as one big cylinder, suddenly wed created a space cake, says Hadfield. We could cut everybody a little traditional triangular slice, and have a birthday cake that was using the materials on hand to make something that actually was quite delicious and different, but still reminiscent.

If they had been celebrating on the Moon, birthday candles could have been flickering. But in microgravity, theres no convection. The only way for oxygen to resupply a lit candle would have been through random molecular motion, Hadfield explains. Starved of oxygen on the ISS, the spherical blue flames would have almost immediately extinguished.

Not being able to blow out candles didnt detract from the celebrations, though: We had the whole world in our window.

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During his five-month assignment aboard the ISS in 2013 the second half of which he served as commander, another first (in 2001, he became the first Canadian to walk in space) Hadfield captured the worlds attention. His cover of David Bowies Space Oddity has more than 50 million views on YouTube, but people were also captivated by glimpses of his daily life in orbit.

Part of it is just trying to share what is still an extremely rare human experience, and a perspective that I think is really important. Being able to see the entire world in 90 minutes, over and over again, forever changes your perception of where the line between us and them is drawn, and the shared commonality of the human experience, says Hadfield, who was an astronaut for 21 years and has since started exploring space in fiction with The Apollo Murders (Oct. 12, 2021, Random House Canada). The perspective from space radically forever improves your understanding of the world itself.

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The ISS is entirely dependent on supplies from Earth. As Hadfield demonstrated in videos shot in his space kitchen, food preparation is limited to opening packages, squeezing tubes, rehydrating or reheating. There are no fridges, freezers, stoves, microwaves or dishwashers no aromas of food cooking, coffee brewing or plates to eat off of.

Since objects float away if untethered, astronauts tend to eat serially: one dish after the other. Building a meal with multiple ingredients aboard the ISS would be akin to food juggling; the less assembly, the better.

Space foods must be compact, firm (not crumbly), lightweight, shelf-stable, nutritious and tasty. But feeding astronauts today involves more adaptability and expense than it does invention, says Hadfield. Moving beyond the ISS to the Moon or Mars, however, will require innovation.

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In an effort to encourage the creation of food technologies or systems for long-duration space missions, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) has partnered with NASA on the Deep Space Food Challenge, which Hadfield is co-chairing with Dr. Thomas Graham, a professor in the University of Guelphs School of Environmental Sciences with 25 years of experience in space-related research.

The international competition includes $300,000 for up to 15 winning Canadian teams. This fall, as many as 10 semi-finalists will test their prototypes; and in fall 2022, up to four finalists will build a full system demonstration. Underscoring the complexity of the task, the jury is diverse: Lynn Blackwood, a food security policy analyst with the Nunatsiavut Government, Lawrence Goodridge, director of the Canadian Research Institute for Food Safety at the University of Guelph, and chef Lynn Crawford are among the 11 tasked with arriving at a short list.

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Less than 10 per cent of NASAs Food Lab menu is feasible for trips to Mars, according to the Deep Space Food Challenge. On the ISS, any of the food astronauts grow is research-oriented, not nutritional. In order to embark on longer missions to destinations like Mars, we need to be able to produce food en route, as well as sustain ourselves once we get there.

In coming up with future food technologies for space, innovators must consider questions terrestrial producers take for granted, says Hadfield: How long is a day and night? What air pressure is it? Will there be soil and if so, what type? Are there insects or not? How will seeds be germinated? Is there gravity and if so, how much and how will it affect plant life?

Producing food in space may be wrapped up in a new set of parameters, but Hadfield looks at it historically. Just as when Indigenous peoples in present-day southern Mexico domesticated corn roughly 9,000 years ago, the solutions are technical, they are scientific. Theyre genetic and biological.

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The technologies and systems must be as sustainable as possible and have the ability to produce more than they take. Its a complex problem that humans have had to solve many times over, he adds, as weve found ways to adapt to new environments over millennia.

Necessity is the mother of invention; whether addressing the effects of climate change on Earth or settling the Moon, when external circumstances change, our approaches must shift as well.

To start growing things in a new climate, in our long, long human past, that has required invention, says Hadfield. And thats where we are now for the Deep Space Food Challenge: Were going to a new environment. And so how much can you bring with you? How much can you grow in situ? And then how are you going to turn that into not just one food stuff, but a wide enough smorgasbord that it meets everybodys nutritional needs?

These innovations wont be confined to deep space, though; they should also have the potential to improve life on Earth. The distance between the two may seem difficult to fathom, but there are direct parallels.

The terrestrial benefits (of space exploration) are huge, says Graham, who specializes in controlled-environment agriculture (e.g., greenhouses, hydroponics, vertical farms). Doing it better there, under the really tight requirements of space, allows us to improve things here for the betterment of us all. It will make our food systems more secure.

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Since 1976, NASA has recorded more than 2,000 spinoff technologies, including the recent development of a ventilator for coronavirus patients. As many as 811 million people in the world lived with food insecurity in 2020 according to the FAO; innovations for space could be applied to hard-hit areas at home, including food deserts, remote and Northern communities.

Right now, at least terrestrially, vertical farms are making money on things like leafy greens, microgreens, baby greens. Thats fairly well established, says Graham. But if this sort of method of production is ever going to truly realize its potential, we need to get into things that have higher energy content, things that can provide fibre and proteins and lipids.

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Grahams group at the U of Gs Controlled Environment Systems Research Facility is examining ways to expand the scope, investigating crops like beans. And as part of his three-year postdoctoral term at NASA, he and a team at the Kennedy Space Center developed the first spaceflight-compatible tree fruit with the USDA.

Tree fruits with their continual cycles of flowering, fruit production and dormancy dont work in space or vertical farms, Graham explains. But their engineered plum tree, which is more vine-like (similar to a tomato), flowers quickly and constantly.

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As an added bonus, it turns out that prunes (dried plums) are very good terrestrially for mitigating bone loss, he says. Due to radiation in microgravity, bone loss in space is a significant issue; the prunes produced from this crop could also be used as a countermeasure to help mitigate the stresses on the body in space.

That has been picked up by some of the big vertical farm players that have fairly extensive R & D programs. So theyre looking at that now for terrestrial applications, he adds. Its all intertwined when youre talking about food. It doesnt matter where you do it; the questions are the same.

Graham is also part of a project aiming to grow edible plants on the Moon by 2024. As a very first baby step, their goal is to have three plants barley, radish and an as-yet-undetermined third withstand a lunar night. At roughly minus 200 degrees Celsius and lasting for two weeks, surviving it is challenging. In 2019, China successfully sprouted a cotton plant on the Moon an agricultural first but when the lunar night fell, it perished.

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In deep space, plants would provide a source of food, adds Graham, but they would also deliver other requirements for life support all in a regenerative fashion. A plant grows and makes seeds, which can be used to start another plant and the cycle continues.

Growing plants in space provides the oxygen we need to breathe, scrubs the carbon dioxide we exhale, and helps purify the water. And then theres the psychological benefit of sharing space with other living organisms: Humans didnt evolve in a tin can, so its always nice to have some greenery with you.

Menu diversity is part of the Deep Space Food Challenge as well; people take comfort in eating, especially in high stress environments. Having continual access to fresh food being able to pluck a few leaves of basil from a tray and add them to a dish, for example would go a long way towards adding enjoyment.

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Eating your supper out of a toothpaste tube is no way to live, says Graham, laughing. So if you can improve someones mental well-being when theyre on a rocket ship or on some very inhospitable planet where if you step outside unprotected, you die, theres certain merit to that. And again, that still translates to Earth. If you can provide people with good, nutritious food, you reduce health-care costs.

Space is the ultimate in closed-loop (or circular) production, he adds: All space waste needs to be processed in the backend of the system as we should probably be doing on Earth, too. In effect, there is no waste in space; only resources.

Controlled-environment agriculture is not poised to replace field production on Earth, Graham highlights, but it is a complementary way to provide fresh, local food. If you close the loops by tying in renewable energy, its an efficient, sustainable and weather-proof production system, which helps improve food security. As an added benefit, it can be done anywhere, all year long.

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There are still technical aspects to figure out, he says, but thats where things like this challenge help. Lets put this big old carrot out there that were all going to go for. And as the technology develops, and is improved through these challenges, we all benefit.

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Hadfield grew up on a grain farm in southern Ontario, where he learned firsthand how important technology is for the efficiency of food production. Its also where he watched the Apollo missions and Moon landings in the late 1960s and early 70s. NASA could have waited to show the world, as the Soviets did, he recalls. But broadcasting the process as it unfolded no matter the outcome made the triumph all the more impactful.

I think maybe I internalized that as a 10 or 11 year old kid, that Hey, if you ever get to do this, share it. Dont keep it to yourself. Let other people see the beauty of it, and the opportunity of it, says Hadfield. And its why Im in the Deep Space Food Challenge as well. To me, its part of my own responsibility, but its also a really cool facet of it that we need. And where the technology can spin back and really help everybody.

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The race is on to develop space food for Mars and it could change how we eat on Earth - National Post