Feeding the potential for the mission to Mars

The task of the food technology team may not be rocket science,but it is daunting in its own way,and just as crucial to the missions success. Imagine having to pack more than 6,570 breakfasts,lunches,snacks and dinners all at onceenough meals to feed six people every day for more than three years. Imagine preparing all these meals with an allotment of 3.2 pounds of food per person per day,about one-third less than the average American eats each day on Earth. Imagine that each dish needs to have a five-year shelf life. And imagine having to transport all the meals to a dining table 55 million miles away,where cooking equipment will be rudimentary at best. Perchonok betrays no hint of panic. Designing a menu for Mars is simply a scientific problem,to be solved like any other. We will get there,because we wont fly if we cant do it,and I dont want to be the person responsible for that, she said.

Think astronaut food and youre likely to conjure up images of freeze-dried ice cream or Tang. The first American forays into space werent long enough to bother with food. When flights got longer,early astronauts were treated to a delicacy originally developed for pilots of U2 spy planes.

It was like a toothpaste container with a vegetable pureejar baby food,basically, said Paul Lachance,a retired Rutgers University professor of nutrition and food science who worked on NASAs astronaut feeding programme in the 1960s.

Some of the scientific questions on the early flights were basic. Would stuff float,or go down the wrong tube? Lachance said. They wanted to see that you didnt choke.

By the time of Apollo missions,meals resembled actual food: dehydrated sausage patties and fruit cocktail for breakfast,say,and spaghetti with meat sauce for dinner.

Today,space cuisine is rather more sophisticated. Favorite dishes on shuttle and space station missions include freeze-dried shrimp cocktail,irradiated beef fajitas and shelf-stable cherry-blueberry cobbler.

Yet some mundane foods remain beyond the reach of NASAs kitchen wizards. They cant concoct a zero-gravity pizza because the crust would need to be preserved differently than the toppings. Nor can they make a cheesecake that survives the preservation process without turning hard.

Though tastiness is a high priority,food safety is the paramount concern for astronauts beyond the reach of advanced medical care. NASA has multiple strategies for keeping food edible for up to two years,as required for the space station.

Cooked items are placed in a flexible foil-and-laminate package and thermostabilised in an industrial pressure cooker. Heat from the process destroys microorganisms and makes the package shelf-stable,like canned food. Irradiation is used make meat dishes safe to store at room temperature for up to two years. Freeze-drying food deprives bacteria and other bugs the water they need to multiply. That type of food works well on the shuttle because the spacecrafts fuel cells produce water as a byproduct. But water will be in short supply on Mars,making that technology much less practical. And the food to be sent to Mars will need a much longer shelf life.

It takes at least six to eight months to fly there when Earth and Mars are at their closest,and astronauts would likely sojourn on the Red Planet for a year and a half so that they can head home when the planets are once again nearby. If NASA decides to send food ahead of time in a separate capsule,the meals will have to last five years.

Some items from the space station menu might remain safe to eat for that period of time. But none are likely to be appetizing for that long. The Maillard reaction,a chemical interaction between amino acids and sugars,turns foods brown,even inside a can or other package. Or a small amount of air can trigger oxidation,which turns food rancid and degrades vitamins and minerals. If any water gets into a meal pouch,it can boost microbiological activity and alter the foods color,flavor and texture. To slow the inevitable chemical reactions,NASA is seeking gentler technologies that kill pathogens with less heat so the food takes longer to degrade. One leading candidate is a sterilisation process that relies more on pressure than temperature.

Another promising technology combines microwave radiation with heat from water to sterilise food pouches in five to eight minutes instead of the usual 40 to 60. Food tastes fresher and lasts longer because it is subjected to high heat for much less time.

Tom Oziomek,the packaging scientist in Perchonoks group,is testing a new type of polyethylene material coated in aluminum-oxide nanoparticles that was developed for use in the pharmaceutical industry. The aluminum oxide layer has many of the same useful barrier properties as foil.

Only after the right preservation and packaging technologies are found can the food scientists get down to the business of recalibrating old recipes and creating new ones. Their lab resembles a home economics classroom,except that it is outfitted with specialiszed equipment like a vacuum moisture analyser,a pH meter,a colorimeter,a texture analyser,a viscometer and a huge shelf-life testing chamber. Perchonok said she anticipates that recipe reformulation will begin in 2013.

In the meantime,scientists are weighing the pros and cons of supplementing packaged meals with fresh fruits and vegetables. NASA first grew plants in space in the 1960s,and a team at Kennedy Space Center in Florida has been developing a domed chamber in which astronauts could raise crops like lettuce,tomatoes,carrots and green onions hydroponically.

That would really add to the quality of life and acceptability of the diet, said Ray Wheeler,the plant physiologist in charge of the project.

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