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Astronauts need more calories and nutrients than a person on Earth.
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But packaged food loses nutritional value in space, so what do people eat on long space missions?
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Scientists figured out the best meal for astronauts and it’s worth trying for yourself.
In the not so distant future, humans can journey to Mars or beyond. These deep space trips will be a lot of travel – it takes at least seven months on Mars with current technology.
Never mind the psychological toll it can have on the astronauts’ mental health or the physical effects their bodies are at risk of from space radiation. Let’s talk basics: food.
Astronauts need to eat – a lot. However, long-distance space probes will not be able to rely entirely on pre-packaged foods and vitamins as they do on the International Space Station because some of the nutrients inside these products tend to degrade afterwards . year.
Furthermore, due to the way microgravity affects human metabolism, astronauts require much more energy to function than humans on Earth. A 40-year-old, 154-lb man in space may need 2,700 calories a day, instead of 2,000, according to research.
As a result, during long space missions, it is likely that at least part of the astronauts’ diets will come from fresh, renewable crops. grown up on the spaceship.
The perfect astronaut meal: space salad
To that end, an international team of scientists calculated 10 different combinations of crops that could be grown on deep space missions and published their results in the peer-reviewed journal of the American Chemical Society. Food Science & Technology.
In their study, the researchers considered the nutritional needs of an astronaut, how much space the crops would take up, and also the amount of water each plant needed.
The “winning” crop combo had the best synergy between nutrition and efficient farming.
It has got high vitamin levels and it has crops that grow within 50 days to 100 days and have very little square footage. And, with the exception of seeds, most of all plants are edible.
Using only the crops from the winning combination, the scientists made a recipe for a vegetarian space salad, which I tried myself.
How does it taste
I decided to make the meal and decide for myself how to prepare this future space salad. I was surprised at how delicious it was.
The recipe is designed to meet the nutritional value for three male astronauts, offering approximately 900 calories per serving for each. Here is a list of the ingredients, according to the study.
You will need to:
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642 grams of sweet potatoes (about 5 small potatoes)
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223 grams of pear barley (about 1 cup)
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155 grams of poppy seeds
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79 grams of kale
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63 grams of soybeans
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25 grams of peanuts
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18 grams of sunflower seeds
Ideally, an astronaut would eat this meal once a week as part of a rotation of dishes, said study co-author Volker Hessel, who is a professor of sustainable chemical engineering at the University of Adelaide.
I could definitely see myself eating the space salad every so often. The salad was easy to make and took about 30 minutes from prep to plate. Plus, all that protein made him stuffy.
Long space flights require special diets
The authors of the study developed the space salad based on NASA nutritional guidelines for long space trips, using computers to calculate the most fuel-efficient and resource-efficient combination. Business Insider reached out to NASA’s Space Food Systems Laboratory for comment, but it did not respond.
As well as more energy, astronauts will need more of certain vitamins such as calcium and magnesium – to prevent astronauts’ skeletons from wasting away without gravity. They will also need potassium for homeostasis, which balances and stabilizes all the body’s systems.
Now, thankfully, research from the International Space Station indicating that the nutrient content of crops grown in space is usually close to that of their cousins on Earth.
So, we can approximate how much nutrition astronauts would earn from eating this space salad.
For example, one serving of the space salad contains:
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52 g of poppy seeds, which carry 749 mg of calcium (62% of the recommended daily intake for astronauts
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214 g of it sweet potatoeswhich offers 807 mg potassium (17% of the daily intake)
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74 g of barley provides 16 mg magnesium (4% of daily intake)
But of course, not all astronauts will need the same diet.
Future research
The scenarios in the study were designed for male astronauts, alone. Female astronauts are likely to have different requirements for nutrients such as magnesium and iron.
Therefore, the authors said they plan to adjust the diet plans to include female astronauts in future research.
Making things even more challenging, Hessel said that each team member’s body will react differently to the stress of space.
In addition, an astronaut’s nutritional needs may change during the journey.
For example, when an astronaut spends an hour outside the ISS to perform extravehicular activity, NASA can Dietary guidelines 2020 they recommend eating an extra 200 calories that day.
The computer simulations in the study should be able to devise new diets as needed. “We can give recommendations for new requirements almost the same day,” said Hessel. But shuttle food provision must be flexible enough to accommodate these changes.
What about meat?
Meat lovers needn’t worry: the future of space doesn’t have to be vegetarian. Past astronaut meals have included dehydrated shrimp cocktail, beef brisket, and even teriyaki chicken.
Future space explorers may also eat a lot of lab-grown meat, which is currently in the middle of the FDA approval process and could soon be available in restaurants.
Scientists are working on raising fish in space so that astronauts can have fresh meat. The authors of the study say that fish could be an ideal part of a space ecosystem, because astronauts could feed them excess plant material and then harvest their excrement for fertilizer.
If you wanted to add meat to your space salad, I’d recommend pairing it with a lighter option like chicken or tuna. But if your astronaut heart yearns for more exploration, you could try any salad toppings you like.
Read the original article on Business Insider
