It's been about 70 years since astronauts have been making plans to embark on year long journey to planet Mars. Ideally, it will take at least 9 months to get to Mars when the orbits are in optimal alignment. Hence, even if you decide to leave the planet Mars as soon as you touch the ground and find your way back home, you will still need to be in transit for at least one and half years. Within this interim, your spacecraft will have to continuously be powered by fuel, and all the crew members will need to eat, pass urine as well as faecal wastes.
[A spacecraft. Source: Wikimedia commons. Author: Thegreenj. Public domain licensed]
Simply gathering enough food and water that will last for the entire duration of the trip is not an ideal option for some reasons. It will take up space and add to the weight of the already heavy spacecraft, increasing the cost of fueling the machine. Again, scientists can decide to use hydroponic technology to grow traditional food within the spacecraft but this is a tough sell; it will take up the limited available space and certainly will need some sort of energy.
Just imagine the amount of food and the volume of water that will be enough to serve the crew members for the whole duration of the trip. This is simply unthinkable! Even if all the above are feasible and affordable, what becomes of the fate of the whole crew in a situation where things didn't go as planned and the crew run out of food supply? Obviously death (God forbid, though).
Little wonder it has been over 70 years and counting since the idea was first conceived, yet the journey is yet to be undertaken. Undoubtedly, scientists have been working round the clock to not only develop a high performance spacecraft that can reach the red planet but also come up with sustainable ways to provide food and water out of something the astronauts will never be in shortage of; in others words, something that can never run out or be in short supply. And what are the best suited raw materials for this purpose?: Urine and Poops!đ.
[An alternative device NASA plans to grow food with on future spacecraft and on other planets. Source: Wikimedia commons. Author: NASA. Public domain licensed]
So far, tremendous progress have been recorded in pursuit of scientific space mission. A spacecraft that can take astronauts to Mars is currently being developed. Again, scientists have succeeded in developing an efficient way to convert urine into drinkable water for the astronauts. With this, whatever amount of urine that is passed out by astronauts is recycled back into water to be used by them. Obviously, problem of water shortage or availability is solved with this because humans will always urinate.
...and finally way to covert faecal matter into edible food is discovered
With the challenge of getting drinkable water from urine already taken care of, scientific focus was directed at transforming feaces into food. Initially, this endeavor appears impossible because faeces are thought to have been infested by deadly pathogenic microorganisms. However, against all odds, in a research project funded by NASA, researchers working at the Penn State University announced they have developed a novel and sustainable way to turn faecal matter into something that is not only edible but highly nutritious. The study was published in Life Sciences in Space Research.
[Astronauts aboard ISS drinking own urine to officially test the facility's urine processing plant. Source: Flickr commons. CC BY-SA 2.0 licensed]
âWe envisioned and tested the concept of simultaneously treating astronautsâ waste with microbes while producing a biomass that is edible either directly or indirectly depending on safety concerns,â Christopher House, a professor of geosciences at Penn State, explains and then continued...
âItâs a little strange, but the concept would be a little bit like Marmite or Vegemite where youâre eating a smear of âmicrobial goo.'â Source
The Process
First it should be emphasized that the astronauts will not have to eat the poops directly as that will certainly be suicidal.
Just like human poops and other organic manures are used in agriculture by first making them available to plants that use them to produce foods before humans can then feast on the produce of the plants. Here, the poops are first used to grow bacteria that will eventually grow into something edible and nutritious for human consumption.
Technically, the process involves subjecting the poops to anaerobic digestion process to generate a wealth of methane gas. The methane so generated is then used to grow a microorganism known as Methylococcus capsulatus which is presently being used as animal feed.
The scientists further grew the nutritious bacteria and found them to not only contain 52% proteins and 32% fats but also free of the disease causing pathogens that are abundant in fecal matter. And thus makes it a potential source of food for astronauts on long-haul space mission.
[Austronauts eating. Source: Wikimedia commons. Author: NASA. Public domain licensed]
Apart from Methylococcus capsulatus, the researchers also discovered other microbes that can equally serve as great alternative food sources; edible and nutritious. These include Halomonas desiderata (15% protein and 7% fats) and Thermus aquaticus (61% protein and 16% fats).
Conclusion
The microbe based system is an incredibly efficient system that will certainly play a huge role in future deep-space missions by ensuring a sustainable food availability to astronauts and other scientists that will be taking part in the missions. With this, steady food availability is no longer a continuous source of concern for astronauts neither is it one of the factors preventing mission to Mars anymore. Thanks for reading.
References for further reading
- Scientists figure out how to allow Astronauts on long missions to eat their own faeces
- Researchers want to make astronauts food from poop and bacteria
- Microbes may help astronauts transform human waste into food
- Scientists invent way to turn astronaut poop into food for long-haul space missions
- We might need to turn our poop into food to survive in space
- Scientists explore using astronaut poop to make space food
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