What will astronauts eat when they leave Earth for other planets or moons? If they travel that far, they’ll need to figure out how to produce their own food, given the resource constraints that exist in outer space. Researchers concluded the ideal meal given those constraints is a salad: “a combination of sweet potato, kale, soybeans, poppy seeds, barley, peanuts, and sunflower seeds,” according to researchers:
The first phase of a two-part study published in December 2023 by the American Chemical Society’s journal of Food Science and Technology used computer modeling to consider what sustainable, renewable nourishment might look like for long-term space explorers. Researchers assembled the winning set of ingredients as a “space salad” and served it to four testers to make sure it was palatable. Two went back for seconds, and one even claimed they would gladly eat it every day.
Volker Hessel, a professor of chemical engineering … who worked on the study, describes the selection of 102 potential ingredients from a global range of options. “We were looking at the beginning strictly for crops, for vegan food,” Hessel explains…While plants have already been successfully grown in space … “Nobody plans to bring a cow or a pig to the Moon or Mars.”
The potential for recycling inedible parts of plants was an important consideration for Hessel’s study. Equally important was the amount of resources required, as the ideal space crop provides a high, nutritious yield from a relatively low input. Several kinds of grain made the list, including amaranth and quinoa, traditional staples so nutrient-dense that they are often hailed as “superfoods.” Kale also made the cut. Rounding out the list were seeds and nuts, various fruits and vegetables, tempeh, a single leafy herb (peppermint), and a few spices like cinnamon, cardamom, and cloves….
Once 102 ideal ingredients for a space diet were identified, researchers used computer software to generate combinations that met specified parameters. Officially termed “scenarios,” we might think of these as recipes, or rather, ingredient lists for recipes, since the computer was not tasked with producing cooking instructions. Constraints included how many ingredients to use; researchers settled on six to eight. “If you’ve ever had a salad with just tomato and lettuce, it’s boring,” says Hessel, while too many additions would overcomplicate things….
The study’s software produced 13 scenarios that met the provided constraints…In the end, 10 scenarios were examined seriously, of which six included animal ingredients and four were vegan. It was determined that the most optimal combination of ingredients, balancing maximum nutrition with minimum farming resources, was one of the vegan options: a combination of sweet potato, kale, soybeans, poppy seeds, barley, peanuts, and sunflower seeds.
Even this combination would be low on certain needed nutrients, so astronauts consuming it would have to take Vitamin B12 supplements.
The need to grow food in space could be reduced by using robots for more tasks. Robots with artificial intelligence are spreading on Japanese farms. In the U.S., farming robots now use artificial intelligence to kill 100,000 weeds per hour. Drones with artificial intelligence will make farming easier.
Robots are also being use for food preparation, such as the salad-making robot used by the Sweetgreen restaurant chain. Robot waiters are increasingly being used in South Korean restaurants, which are facing a labor shortage.
Chipotle is investing in a “digital makeline” where robots prepare salads and bowls. It already uses a machine named Chippy to make tortilla chips and a contraption called the Autocado to mash avocados into guacamole. Sweetgreen has a robotic chop-and-prep system that “can produce up to 100 salads in 15 minutes, with improved accuracy,” according to Restaurant Business. Chipotle’s founder, Steve Ells, is opening a chain of robot-run vegetarian fast-casual restaurants in New York City called Kernel, according to Eater.
Doctors recently used a surgical robot to carry out incredibly complicated spinal surgery. Doctors also recently did the first robotic liver transplant in America.
Scientists have developed tiny robots made of human cells to repair damaged cells. Nanorobots are also being used to fight cancer. “In a major advancement in nanomedicine, Arizona State University scientists…have successfully programmed nanorobots to shrink tumors by cutting off their blood supply,” reported Next Big Future.
Artificial intelligence is now developing highly-effective antibodies to fight disease. Doctors overseas are using artificial intelligence to detect cases of breast cancer more effectively.
