DailyDirt: Meals On Mars
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Astronauts might hibernate on the way to Mars, but they’ll eventually need to wake up and eat something. Astronaut food isn’t just freeze-dried ice cream and tubes of mashed up mystery meat. Even though microgravity can adversely affect a person’s sense of taste, that doesn’t mean astronauts should be expected to live on endlessly dreary meals. Here are just a few links on space foods that astronauts might enjoy.
- What foods would you crave if you were isolated from the rest of humanity on another world? Nutella and Spam were on the menu in a simulated Mars mission that studied what astronauts might want to eat. [url]
- Kimchi is a fermented cabbage dish that Korean astronauts won’t want to leave behind when traveling in space. Millions of dollars and several years were spent creating a space-worthy version of kimchi that wouldn’t offend other astronauts but still serve as a Korean comfort food. [url]
- Martian soil could actually be suitable for growing crops. This conclusion is based on “artificial Martian soil” made from volcanic soil from Earth, so we might want to get some real Martian soil samples to make sure (before anyone relies on Martian farmland for food). [url]
If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.
Filed Under: farming, food, kimchi, manned missions, mars, martian soil, nutella, space, space exploration, spam
Comments on “DailyDirt: Meals On Mars”
I’m beginning to see a pattern in the last few DailyDirt posts…
Re: Re:
You mean how they always have three links? I noticed that too. 😉
I would crave a Mars break, er, bar.
These posts are out of this world.
Astronaut food, historical and current
For a little history of ‘space food’, there’s a 20-minute video that the people at Tested created, where they interview one of the people in charge of the lab that creates the food that astronauts eat, as well as discuss how the ‘meals’ served to astronauts have changed over the years.
Tasting Astronaut Food: Inside NASA’s Space Food Systems Laboratory
http://youtu.be/6vVle67Tfjc
dis-comfort foods
Some people might find this a bit hard to swallow, but any lengthy manned space flight would by necessity require recycling a person’s bodily wastes back into food and water. (so even with modern equipment, your drinking water could have a noticeable tang to it)
regarding Martian soil: The science of hydroponics has demonstrated that most plants can be raised (quite well, in fact) without any soil whatsoever, with just a nutrient-rich water solution.
regarding Kimchi: It’s well known that cabbage eaters and confined spaces tend not to be a happy combination. Though it’s interesting that North Korea (where happy people are rare) would have the biggest submarine fleet in the world.
So for everyone’s sake, let’s hope Korean astronauts leave the Kimchi at home. And even more so with Swedes and their god-awful Surströmming.
Re: dis-comfort foods
pundit,
Perhaps you might find it hard to swallow… that you’re already eating/drinking recycled bodily wastes from dinosaurs and many other animals (including humans). (And there is no noticeable tang at all.)
I would bring the ultimate fermented food. Beer.