Within the 2015 sci-fi movie “The Martian,” Matt Damon stars as an astronaut who lives on a weight loss plan of potatoes grown in human feces whereas marooning the Crimson Planet.
Now a New York An organization that makes carbon detrimental Aviation Gas is taking the interplanetary delicacies menu in a really totally different route. His innovation has landed him within the finals of a NASA-sponsored contest to encourage the event of next-generation applied sciences to fulfill the meals wants of astronauts.
An air firm close to Brooklyn has pioneered a solution to recycle carbon dioxide launched by astronauts in flight to develop yeast-based vitamins for protein shakes designed to nourish crews on long-duration deep-space missions.
“It is undoubtedly extra nutritious than Tang,” stated Stafford Sheehan, the corporate’s co-founder and chief know-how officer, referring to the powdered drink popularized by John Glenn in 1962 when he turned the primary American to orbit the Earth.
Sheehan, WHO who holds a doctorate in bodily chemistry from Yale College, stated he initially developed his carbon-conversion know-how as a method of manufacturing high-purity alcohol for jet gasoline, fragrance and vodka.
The NASA-sponsored Deep House Meals Problem prompted Sheehan to change his findings as a solution to produce edible proteins, carbohydrates, and fat from a single system.
Love the style … seitan
The ensuing single-cell protein drink entered within the NASA contest has the consistency of a whey protein shake, Sheehan stated. Sheehan in contrast its style to seitan, a tofu-like meals created from wheat gluten that originated in East Asian delicacies and has been adopted by vegetarians as a meat substitute.
“And also you get that sweet-tasting, nearly malty taste,” Sheehan stated in an interview.
Other than protein drinks, the identical course of can be utilized to make extra carbohydrate-heavy substitutes for bread, pasta, and tortillas. For the sake of culinary selection, Sheehan stated he sees his smoothies being complemented on missions by different sustainably produced edibles.
The corporate’s patented AIRMADE know-how was one of many eight winners introduced NASA This month within the second part of its meals competitors, with $750,000 in prize cash. The ultimate spherical of the competitors is coming.
Different winners embrace: a bioregenerative system from a Florida lab to lift recent greens, mushrooms and bug larvae to be used as micronutrients; a synthetic photosynthesis course of developed in California to provide plant- and fungal-based components; and Finland’s gas-fermentation know-how to provide single-cell proteins.
As much as $1.5 million in prizes cash can be divided among the many closing winners of the competitors.
Whereas few are prone to make it into the Michelin Information to nice eating, they signify an enormous leap past the Tang and freeze-dried snacks utilized by astronauts within the early days. house journey.
The brand new food-growing schemes are much more engaging, and promise to be extra nutritious than Matt Damon’s fictional poop-fertilized potatoes in “The Martian.”
“He was taking an thought to extremes Hollywood film,” stated Ralph Fritsche, house crop manufacturing supervisor at NASA’s Kennedy House Heart in Florida, including that human waste “is just not the one full supply of vitamins that vegetation must develop and thrive.”
Protecting astronauts well-nourished for prolonged intervals of time within the confined, zero-gravity confines of spacecraft in low-Earth orbit has posed a problem for NASA. For the previous 20 years, the crew aboard the ship Worldwide House Station Subsisted on a weight loss plan of largely packaged meals with some recent produce delivered on common resupply missions.
ISS groups have additionally experimented with rising a lot of greens in orbit, together with lettuce, cabbage, kale and chili peppers, based on NASA.
However as NASA focuses on returning astronauts to the Moon and human exploration to Mars and past, the necessity for minimal sources to provide self-contained, low-waste meals has turn into extra obvious.
Advances in space-based meals manufacturing have direct functions to feeding Earth’s ever-growing inhabitants whereas local weather change makes meals extra scarce and troublesome to provide, Frisch stated.
“Managed environmental agriculture, the primary modules we deploy on the Moon, can have some similarities to vertical farms on Earth,” Fritsche stated.
Sheehan’s system begins by taking scrubbed carbon dioxide fuel from the air breathed by astronauts and mixing it with hydrogen fuel extracted from water by electrolysis. The ensuing alcohol and water combination is then fed to a small quantity of yeast to develop a renewable provide of single-cell protein and different vitamins.
In essence, Sheehan stated, carbon dioxide and hydrogen kind the alcohol feedstock for fermentation, “and yeast is meals for people.”
“We’re not reinventing merchandise,” Sheehan stated, “we’re making them extra sustainably.”
