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A journey
to Mars presents many challenges, not the least of which will be how to feed
the astronauts during what is expected to be a six-month journey to the Red
Planet. To that end, the U.S. space agency NASA is working to create
lightweight food bars that provide calories without adding a lot of extra
weight to the Orion spacecraft and the massive booster needed to get to Mars.
Unlike
the International Space Station, where astronauts can choose from more than 200
food items, that’s simply not feasible on a mission to Mars, primarily because
the amount of fuel needed to get to Mars means finding ways to save weight in
other areas, like food. Also, the ISS is regularly resupplied with various
consumables.
The food
bars, for now at least, are being developed for breakfast, NASA said. “When you
have 700 to 900 calories of something, it’s going to have some mass regardless
of what shape it’s in, so we’ve taken a look at how to get some mass savings by
reducing how we’re packaging and stowing what the crew would eat for breakfast
for early Orion flights with crew,” said Jessica Vos, deputy health and medical
technical authority for Orion. “When you think about multi-week missions in
Orion, having just one package for breakfast items for crew will help us limit
the space we need to store them.”
While many
Americans eat a protein bar in place of a meal from time to time, NASA said
those are not good enough for the Mars mission. “There’s no
commercially-available bar right now that meets our needs, so we’ve had to go
design something that will work for the crew, while trying to achieve a
multi-year shelf-life,” said Takiyah Sirmons, a food scientist with the
Advanced Food Technology team at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Some of
the flavors being worked on include orange cranberry and barbecue nut. NASA
notes that for other meals, astronauts on their way to and from Mars will have
food selection similar to the ISS. One
potential problem with food bars is that they may lower crew morale, as food
choice, taste and quality are important on long missions.
So, NASA
is also working on other ways to provide food to astronauts, including a
vegetable production system like the one on the space station as well as other
types of packaged foods. The first manned launch of the Orion is expected as
early as 2021, with manned missions to Mars coming sometime later.