10 Mind-Bending Attempts to Grow Food in Space
The space race is back like never before. National agencies and private companies compete to explore the cosmos. Many are planning long-distance missions to Mars, jostling to be the first to set foot on the red planet.
But flying to Mars would take years. One of the questions currently facing space agencies is how to feed astronauts on such long journeys. In the 1960s and 1970s, astronauts had to make do with freeze-dried packages. But their missions lasted months – and even then it wasn't exactly pleasant.
Fortunately, teams of free-thinking culinary experts come up with inspiring ways to avoid monotonous, often non-nutritious space porridge. Here are ten of their most brilliant concoctions.
Related: 10 experiments in space that seem pointless
10 Farmbots that 'smell' how their plants are growing
The ARC Center of Excellence in Plants for Space is testing different ways to grow food in space. Food that is actually varied and nutritious. Not just the same old freeze-dried space porridge over and over again, the only thing astronauts have to eat at the moment.
One method is to use farmbots: programmable machines that perform the tasks of an ordinary farmer on Earth. The green-fingered robots plant seeds, control irrigation, treat crops with disease-resistant sprays and harvest them when they reach maturity. They are equipped with digital sensors and AI, which allow them to monitor the growth of the plants.
Scientists working on the project in Melbourne have even designed a part known as an e-nose. By 'smelling' the e-nose picks up odors given off by plants to monitor their needs. And that's not all. The team would use facial recognition technology to find out what the astronauts make of their food and see how microgravity affects the taste.
So far, the technology is still on solid ground. But with a recent resurgence in space travel and organizations pushing for longer missions, we may see farmbots take off in the coming years.[1]
9 3D printed pills inspired by Willy Wonka
Farmbots aren't the only thing the Australian project is working on. The team has several ideas to make good quality food while sailing through the air. Another is through microencapsulated pills that they can 3D print, like something from Willy Wonka's chocolate factory.
In Roald Dahl's classic, Wonka distills a three-course meal into a piece of chewing gum. Each taste hits the tongue at a different time. In a similar idea, the Melbourne scientists take organic material and compress it into a pill. The flavors are released over a period of time to mimic the sensation of a meal.
These multi-flavored pills are still very much in the works. So far, there's no sign of them turning anyone into a giant blueberry, which is a positive start.[2]
8 3D printed steak made from plastic waste
I'm now clinging to the idea of 3D printing for a project that turns plastic waste into edible treats. The idea is that people on board the space mission will collect plastic waste, shred it and then feed it into a bioreactor. Here the waste comes into contact with artificial bacteria. The microbes gobble up the excess plastic and convert it into biomass.
It was engineer Anja Contractor who came up with the bizarre idea. His company, Beehex, develops 3D food printing systems. Beehex is funded by NASA and the US Army, as well as by others. In 2023, Contractor demonstrated the process using a sea container. As he told reporters: “If you want to make steak out of plastic, the whole mechanism on one side of this container will be able to produce steak out of plastic – or chicken breasts.”[3]
7 Veggie on the International Space Station
Given that it can hold six plants at a time, NASA's vegetable production system will never grow enough to feed the entire International Space Station (ISS). But the project, nicknamed Veggie, gives scientists the rare opportunity to study gardening in microgravity. It also allows astronauts to add a little fresh food to their largely freeze-dried diet.
Veggie is about the size of carry-on luggage. Instead of soil, plants grow in cushions of fertilizer and clay. LEDs provide light. So far, the ISS crews have grown various types of lettuce, mustard, kale and Chinese cabbage, among other things. The cosmic gardeners hope to expand to other plants, such as tomatoes and peppers. In addition, plants such as berries are rich in antioxidants, which help counteract the effects of radiation.[4]
6 Multi-storey vertical farming
In the late 1990s, researcher Dr. Dickson Despommier of Columbia University to work on vertical farms. The idea was similar to a multi-storey building; only each floor would have been washed a layer. By dividing the yield into different sections, farmers can control conditions for each plant.
Conditions on a space mission must be carefully designed to grow crops, and there is little space to do that. These limitations mean that techniques like vertical farming are a game-changer for astronauts. But what about us on Earth? Scientists think that we too can benefit from vertical farming. It uses less water and resources and crucially uses less land than traditional agriculture.
One vertically farmed hectare can produce the same amount of crop as four to six hectares in the ground. They are more durable and the growing season lasts all year. It looks like this alien device could be used closer to home than its creators imagined.[5]
5 Growing cress in moon soil
In 2022, scientists successfully grew plants in soil from the moon for the first time. Researchers from the University of Florida planted thale cress seeds in lunar soil and were thrilled to see them germinate. They used samples collected during three Apollo missions in the late 1960s and early 1970s, along with a simulation control.
Although the samples came from different parts of the moon, they all provided sufficient conditions for the growth of the cress. That said, the cress grown in lunar soil was smaller and slower than the control group, and there were signs of stress. Nevertheless, the Florida team is thrilled with their results, which could pave the way for expanded space travel. As Robert Ferl, who worked on the project, told reporters: “Demonstrating that plants will grow on lunar soil is a huge step in establishing lunar colonies.”[6]
4 Artificial burgers made from fungi
Space organizations are eager to invest in food solutions for extended space missions. In 2021, NASA and the Canadian Space Agency launched the Deep Space Food Challenge. They throw down the gauntlet for radical culinary scientists to come up with new ways to make food in space.
The second phase of the competition took place in May 2023 in Brooklyn and produced a series of groundbreaking ideas for new astro edibles. One came from Kernel Deltech, a spinoff of food company Eternal Bioworks, which brought fried cheese and burger bites. The catch? Both are made of Fusarium venenatuma fungus that also occurs in Quorn.
The team devised a way to grow and harvest fungi in microgravity using compact bioreactors. This forms a gray powder rich in protein, which is turned into snacks such as cheese and burger bites.[7]
3 Solein: a protein powder formed from microbes
Kernel Deltech isn't the only innovator taking part in the Deep Space Food Challenge (it wouldn't be much of a challenge if they were). Finnish company Solar Foods has developed a microbe-based powder called Solein (no, not Soylent Green– that is made of people).
Solein is grown from edible bacteria that grow by metabolizing hydrogen gas. Life support machines create hydrogen as a byproduct when they extract oxygen from water. The gas is usually thrown away, but Solar Food's system uses it to grow its Solein protein powder. They say this powder can be turned into virtually any food the astronauts want. They recently showed off their latest technology by making fortune cookies from Solein.[8]
2 Growing mushrooms via artificial photosynthesis
With Nolux we are back in the world of fungi. True to its name (Nolux is Latin for 'no light'), scientists working on the project have devised a way to grow oyster mushrooms without sunlight. Their technique uses liquid hydrocarbon acetate, which can be produced during space missions by converting CO2 and water.
Amazingly, the original Nolux researchers were not looking for innovation in food growth. Instead, they wanted to genetically alter algae to boost biofuel production. That turned out to be far too expensive. But gradually they laid the foundation for Nolux. The team says growing mushrooms with acetate in a 2 cubic meter reactor can produce 8.5 kg of food per day.[9]
1 3D printed beef from Aleph Farms
September 2019 marked a milestone in space food production. That month, scientists grew artificial meat in space for the first time using 3D-printed cow cells.
The Israeli food company Aleph Farms developed the technique. To grow their fake beef, they first extracted cow cells and transferred them to a 'broth' of nutrients. The Soyuz MS-15 from Kazakhstan then flew vials containing the broth and cell mixture to the International Space Station. Russian cosmonauts fed the vials into a magnetic printer, which replicated the cells and created artificial “meat.” The beef samples returned to Earth a week later.
The experiment yielded only a paltry amount of meat and the taste was hardly mouth-watering. Despite all that, Aleph Farms has proven that they can produce meat in the harsh conditions of microgravity. This has all kinds of possible applications.
Yes, the technology might one day provide protein for astronauts on long-distance space missions, but it could also feed people here on Earth. Cultured meat uses ten times less land and water than livestock farming. As supplies of natural resources dwindle, Aleph Farms' artificial steak could point to a more sustainable way to produce meat.[10]