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Deep Space Food Challenge: NASA Offers $1 Million for Innovative Systems to Feed Tomorrow’s Astronauts
SciTech Daily ^

Posted on 01/23/2022 12:10:10 PM PST by BenLurkin

...NASA awarded 18 teams a total of $450,000 for their concepts for innovative food production technology that produces safe, acceptable, palatable, nutritious food products that are stable and high quality, while minimizing necessary resource inputs...10 international teams for their winning submissions. NASA’s supporting partner of the challenge, the Methuselah Foundation, sponsored two $25,000 awards to international teams...

NASA now invites both new and existing teams to enter Phase 2, which will require teams to build and demonstrate prototypes of their designs and produce food for judging. Interested participants from the United States can compete in Phase 2 for part of a prize purse up to $1 million.

The Deep Space Food Challenge asks competitors to create a food production technology, system, or approach that could potentially be integrated into a complete food system to sustain a crew of four on a three-year deep space mission. Everything needed to store, prepare and deliver food to the crew, including production, processing, transport, consumption, and disposal of waste should be considered. Proposed technologies such as plant growth systems, manufactured food products, and ready-to-eat solutions combined could provide the future crews with a variety of options that would provide the needed daily nutrition.

In Phase 1, NASA’s judges grouped U.S. submissions based on the food they envisioned producing. Among the designs were a variety of systems that ranged from complex to very simple. Teams proposed technologies to produce ready-to-eat foods such as bread, as well as dehydrated powders that could be processed into food products. Other technologies involved cultivated plants and fungi or engineered food such as cultured meat cells, all of which could be grown or produced by the crew on deep space missions. Details about the winning submissions and teams can be found on the challenge website.

(Excerpt) Read more at scitechdaily.com ...


TOPICS: Food
KEYWORDS: deepspacefood; nasa
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To: BenLurkin
0-02-01-d79eb316a64d6c15cfb34da0d7c6dc16a11ca9172b5032ef9a3c3971c532357a-b6c11929
41 posted on 01/23/2022 1:50:47 PM PST by MomwithHope (Forev.er grateful to all our patriots, past, present and future..)
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To: ArtDodger

Did you just take a dump or is diner ready?


42 posted on 01/23/2022 2:00:26 PM PST by Kartographer (“We Mutually Pledge To Each Other Our Lives, Our Fortunes And Our Sacred Honor”)
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To: cgbg

There was another Sci-Fi movie called “Silent Running” that reminded me of this issue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p69lEMn0I8k

I have a feeling the solution will have to do with microbes that can be grown in dark, hot-houses.


43 posted on 01/23/2022 2:06:19 PM PST by rbg81
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To: BenLurkin

Spam...
When they run out, just eat each other...


44 posted on 01/23/2022 2:06:47 PM PST by SuperLuminal (Where is another Sam Adams now that we desperately need him?)
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To: BenLurkin

LOL. I just mentioned “Silent Running”. Good Sci-Fi movie that almost no one remembers.


45 posted on 01/23/2022 2:07:20 PM PST by rbg81
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To: BenLurkin

A deep space food source using the best technology is doomed to failure. Just one damn bacteria or virus that will harm your food source kills the mission. Even if the spacecraft were totally free of pathogens a food source
have benevolent bacteria to survive. They do mutate. They can become pathogenic.

A self contained environment of limited diversity is doomed to failure. Just ask the Irish that survived the “Potato Famine.”


46 posted on 01/23/2022 2:17:31 PM PST by cpdiii (CANE CUTTER-DECKHAND-ROUGHNECK-OILFIELD CONSULTANT-GEOLOGIST-PILOT-PHARMACIST )
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To: I want the USA back
Food on Earth contains energy that can be traced back to photosynthesis, and ultimately to the energy of the Sun. You don’t have that in space.

You don't have sunlight in space? Have you heard of a certain bit of technology called a "window"?

47 posted on 01/23/2022 2:23:12 PM PST by SauronOfMordor (A Leftist can't enjoy life unless they are controlling, hurting, or destroying others)
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To: rbg81

This! Just send more tasty gluten-free astronuts!


48 posted on 01/23/2022 2:49:56 PM PST by SgtHooper (If you remember the 60's, YOU WEREN'T THERE!)
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To: BenLurkin

Muslim outreach means all space food will be halal.


49 posted on 01/23/2022 2:50:43 PM PST by xp38
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To: cgbg

Just N95 masks and some boosters, should do it.


50 posted on 01/23/2022 2:52:55 PM PST by SgtHooper (If you remember the 60's, YOU WEREN'T THERE!)
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To: rbg81

A great movie with Bruce Dern as a good guy! Thanks for reminding me of the title!


51 posted on 01/23/2022 2:54:00 PM PST by SgtHooper (If you remember the 60's, YOU WEREN'T THERE!)
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To: Larry Lucido

What a great memory my friend.....as a kid I ate a ton of those things. Lol


52 posted on 01/23/2022 3:03:57 PM PST by V_TWIN (America...so great even the people that hate it refuse to leave)
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To: Telepathic Intruder

I’ve thought about it too, and I have some ideas, but no real way to test any of them.

I’m a plant breeder. I have a bean variety that’s everbearing. Where most beans stop producing if the pods get too ripe, this one just keeps pumping them out. Let them ripen to where the pods start to change color, but haven’t started to dry, for maximum protein with minimal mess.

(Dry pods would shatter and become a safety hazard in zero-G.)

As an added bonus, this variety doesn’t cause nearly as much gas as most beans, and they taste more like beef than beans.

Another breeder I know works with air potatoes. These have a similar food-value as regular potatoes, but the spuds form all along the vines. I’m pretty sure that would give you more productivity in a small space, and you wouldn’t need to worry about the spuds being exposed to light. The lines he’s breeding don’t turn toxic no matter how much light they get.

Combine beans with potatoes, and you get a complete protein.

There’s more. I used to fill entire notebooks with ideas for self-sufficient space colonies. But life happened, and I don’t even know if I still have those anymore.


53 posted on 01/23/2022 3:23:27 PM PST by Ellendra (A single lie on our side does more damage than a thousand lies on their side.)
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To: Ellendra


Sometimes I think they are the answer to all of life's problems.
54 posted on 01/23/2022 3:40:09 PM PST by Telepathic Intruder
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To: BenLurkin

Maybe an improved Tang maker?


55 posted on 01/23/2022 3:42:40 PM PST by aMorePerfectUnion (Fraud vitiates everything ᡕᠵ᠊ᡃ࡚ࠢ࠘ ⸝່ࠡࠣ᠊߯᠆ࠣ࠘ᡁࠣ࠘᠊᠊ࠢ࠘𐡏⁻ )
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To: SgtHooper

Well actually Bruce Dern was sort of a psychopathic killer in that movie but who’s counting?


56 posted on 01/23/2022 3:52:34 PM PST by Telepathic Intruder
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To: V_TWIN

Like instant breakfast 3 packets of stuff to a glass of milk


57 posted on 01/23/2022 4:08:39 PM PST by al baby (Hi Mom Hi Dad)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

A simpler, cleaner more honest time to be sure.

Glad I lived it.


58 posted on 01/23/2022 4:11:41 PM PST by V_TWIN (America...so great even the people that hate it refuse to leave)
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To: rbg81

“Silent Running”

I cried when the little robot died.....broke my heart


59 posted on 01/23/2022 4:13:53 PM PST by V_TWIN (America...so great even the people that hate it refuse to leave)
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To: V_TWIN
Hah!

Tang was good stuff. Ranks up there with spiced apple cider as an instant drink.

Anyone else stay up all night to watch The Moon Landing? Mercury, Gemini and Apollo were during my elementary thru high school years and we were pretty much entranced and obsessed with everything space program. I think many if not most adults were as well.

Blast it though! I want some Tang!

60 posted on 01/23/2022 4:25:52 PM PST by Hootowl99
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