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

The moon may be humanity’s final frontier, but what will we eat when we get there? Pasta and protein bars made out of thin air are just the beginning.

Space fever is approaching at warp speed. In the next two years, NASA plans to send astronauts back to the moon via its Artemis program; The International Space Station (ISS), designed to orbit for 15 years but now hitting its 26th year in space, will soon replaced; and scientists are seriously exploring the possibility of manned missions to deep space. Add to that the meteoric rise of tourism projects individuals to the limit of space and that raises one question for food writers like me: what will we eat when we get there?

“Food is something that keeps astronauts healthy,” says Dr Sonja Brungs, Deputy Chief of Astronaut Operations at European Space Agency. “Good food, proper food with a lot of variety, tailored to the needs of individual astronauts is essential to a successful deep space mission. I think people underestimate how important that is.”

Currently, astronauts are given small food bags containing ready meals. These foods are produced by specialized food companies and subsequently freeze-dried, dehydrated or heat-stabilized. Astronauts add water to heat or cool foods to eat; they can also bring special food that reminds them of home (this too must be carefully formulated and thermostabilized).

There are some setbacks: anything that crumbles, like bread, can’t be taken into space because the crumbs can easily become airborne in the low-gravity environment, meaning they could be inhaled or get into vital equipment. Salt is limited because the body stores sodium differently in space, leading to accelerated osteoporosisand alcohol is also not allowed because it affects the waste water recycling system on the ISS.

“Newness is definitely a problem,” says Brungs. “Astronauts who have only been in space for six months lack crunch and texture. It’s really important for mental well-being to have a variety of textures, and especially for deep space missions to have a variety of food.”

In 2021, NASA launched a Deep Space Food Challenge discovering new ways to create food in space with limited resources producing minimal waste while providing safe, nutritious and tasty food that can be carried on a long-duration deep space mission.

Helsinki-based Solar Foods is one of eight companies to reach the final stage of the challenge. Their remarkable concept: using space debris to create protein.

“We’re making food out of thin air, literally,” says Artuu Luukanen, Solar Foods’ senior vice president for space and defense. His company discovered an edible microbe in the Finnish countryside that feeds on a mixture of carbon dioxide, hydrogen and oxygen. The result is a protein source from bacteria. Protein can be mixed with a variety of flavors or textures to create a variety of nutritious foods such as pasta, protein bars, meat alternatives and even egg substitutes.

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

Solar Foods protein 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 ongoing to see if it can be mixed with oils and 3D-printed into something with the texture of a steak.

There’s also fresh food to consider: while vitamin tablets can help, astronauts need fresh produce, and experiments are ongoing on how to grow vegetables in this unique environment of zero gravity and zero sunlight. The ISS has its own little vegetable garden on board, known as Veggieswhere astronauts study plant growth in microgravity.

back to earth An interstellar laboratory at Merritt Island, Florida, he developed a modular bioregeneration system to produce microgreens, vegetables, mushrooms and even insects; the company is also a finalist in the NASA Deep Space Food Challenge Enigma of the Cosmos in Melbourne, Australia, the company is working on a way to efficiently grow microgreens in space.

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

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

This space food is all in a circular, closed-loop system, with the final product being 3D-printable to create food that somewhat resembles the texture of a chicken schnitzel. Another advantage is that their protein source contains all the essential amino acids that the human body needs to function.

As opportunities for private companies to enter the space race grow, so do opportunities for private chefs. Chef Rasmus Munk from the Michelin restaurant Alchemist in Copenhagen is among many ready to launch. Munk recently announced a partnership with SpaceVIP to provide an immersive dining experience on Space Perspective’s private spaceship Spaceship Neptune, where tickets cost £397,000 ($495,000) per person for a six-hour journey to the edge of space.

He is one of many chefs who see potential in catering for deep-pocketed tourists on commercial space flights. But while it’s easy to see this development as only for the very, very few who can afford such a journey (or make it as an astronaut), the development of space food isn’t just about what we’ll eat in zero gravity, but what we can eventually eat on our planet. NASA’s Deep Space Food Challenge was also designed to create advanced food systems that will benefit us on Earth and enable new avenues for food production in extreme environments and areas with limited resources.

“We are facing big challenges when it comes to climate change, especially when it comes to droughts that affect our ability to produce food,” says Luukanen. “Space puts it to the ultimate test, where we take resources that are considered waste from other activities and turn them into a value-added product. It’s a circular economy philosophy. Earth is the best spaceship we’ve ever been on.” advice and has limited resources.’

For Kristina Karlsson, Head of R&D at Mycorena, the same principle applies: “Our project is about efficient use of resources on Earth and in space,” she says. “There are almost no emissions and almost no waste. Space is just an extreme environment where you 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 might perform in space conditions. It’s something to watch closely: while it’s almost certain that these new foods will form part of the nutritional profile of astronauts in space, it also seems likely that they’ll also affect how we eat on Earth in the future.

BBC.com World table “breaks the kitchen ceiling” by changing the way the world thinks about food, through the past, present and future.

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