This company makes food from the air you breathe

Feeding astronauts has never been easier. Meals are difficult to prepare in zero gravity because liquids behave very differently than on Earth. Therefore, until now, the astronauts have equipped themselves with ready-made menus produced on Earth.

On the other hand, the astronauts will have to fend for themselves during future longer missions to Mars, which will last two to three years. Ready-made food for such a long time has no place in the spaceship.

For this reason, NASA has launched the “Deep Space Food Challenge” competition, in which companies can submit their ideas to feed astronauts. This is reported by the research magazine “Smithsonian Magazine”.

Eight companies have now reached the final round of the competition and largely met NASA’s requirements for astronaut meals. These are: The food should contain as few ingredients as possible and produce little waste.

In addition, it must be nutritious and taste good to the astronauts. Due to the lack of time, the meal must also be quick and easy to prepare.

One finalist stands out in particular with its proposal for an efficient meal: the Air Company of New York. The company has developed a process in which breathing air is converted into food.

In doing so, the company uses the carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air we breathe to grow yeast-based beverage nutrients.

The carbon dioxide from the air, along with hydrogen, forms an alcohol for the yeast, company co-founder Stafford Sheehan said in an interview with Reuters news agency.

The resulting food has the consistency of a whey protein shake, Sheehan said. He compared the taste of the drink to that of seitan, a vegan dish that is used as a meat substitute in Asian cuisine.

In addition to protein drinks, the Air Company also wants to use the same process to make carbohydrate-rich substitutes for bread, pasta and tortillas.

In addition to the Air Company, other finalists in the NASA competition include a Florida company that uses micronutrients to grow fresh vegetables, mushrooms and insect larvae.

A Finnish company is also in the final round. The company can produce single-cell proteins using gas fermentation technology developed in-house.

Advances in food production in space are also giving researchers ideas for feeding the ever-growing population here on Earth, NASA space crop production manager Ralph Fritsche said in an interview with Reuters.

“Controlled environmental agriculture and the first modules for it that we use on the moon will bear a certain resemblance to future vertical agriculture on Earth,” says Fritsche.

In vertical farming, fruit and vegetable plants are grown and propagated in boxes a few square meters above each other.

NASA itself has been experimenting for some time with growing vegetables such as lettuce, kale and chili peppers on the International Space Station.

(t-online, sha)