It's a challenge that spaceflight experts, professors, researchers, and commercial industries are trying to solve: How do we feed astronauts in space?
"This is a hard problem," said John Horack, professor and Neil Armstrong Chair in Aerospace Policy at Ohio State University. "It's hard to replace rain, soil, and sunshine, and not everybody has a green thumb." One effort to help solve this problem is NASA's Deep Space Food Challenge, the third and final phase of which was co-hosted by Ohio State last week.
Deep Space Food Challenge aims to better feed astronauts in space
In 2019, NASA and the Canadian Space Agency launched the Deep Space Food Challenge, a multi-year international competition to develop sustainable food systems for long-term space missions, including on the moon and Mars.
More than 300 teams from 32 countries participated in the contest and pitched their ideas for innovative food systems. The third and final phase of the challenge culminated on Aug. 16 at Ohio State. Winners across all three phases were awarded a total of $3 million.
"We're going to need a roadmap for the food systems we're trying to achieve and this is something that national space agencies can't do themselves," Tor Blomqvist, a food researcher at the German Aerospace Center, said during one of the panel discussions.
Read more at: dispatch.com