After months in a space habitat, astronauts on the moon or Mars will have Cornell University to thank if their daily meals are culinary delights.
To help NASA plan the cuisine for future lunar and Martian space colonies,
a Cornell chef, nutritionist, food and biological engineer and vegetarian
cooking teacher are collaborating to develop and test tasty, nutritious and
economical recipes that astronauts can prepare from a limited set of 15 to
30 crops to be grown in future space habitats. Wheat and potatoes are the
staples to be complemented with rice, soy and peanuts, salad crops and
fresh herbs, all to be grown hydroponically in artificially lit, temperature-controlled space farms.
The fare now being tested at Cornell by weekly taste-testing panels
composed of students, faculty and staff includes seitan tacos with lettuce
and tomato sprinkled with earthmade cheese, carrot “drumsticks,” tempeh
sloppy Joes, basil pesto with soy nuts, pasta primavera and tofu
cheesecake.
“Our goal is to develop a database of food-processing information and a
menu of at least 100 primarily vegetarian recipes of familiar and new
menu items based on crops raised in a bioregenerative life support
system,” said Jean Hunter, associate professor of agricultural and
biological engineering at Cornell who is heading up the project.
The team also is developing a food-related decision-making strategy for
NASA to use in bioregenerative life support systems for multiyear missions
such as a lunar scientific colony or Martian surface exploration.
Bioregenerative life support, in which plants and microorganisms
regenerate air, water and food for the crew, is envisioned for long-term
space exploration, starting 15 to 20 years from now.
“Because the cost of transporting food for these missions will be
astronomical, only about 15 percent of calories will be from earthmade
foods,” added David Levitsky, professor of nutritional sciences and of
psychology at Cornell who also is working on the project. “Our dishes,
therefore, will typically contain under 10 percent of calories from
earthmade foods. These imported foods will probably be the fats, flavor
concentrates and various meat and dairy-based foods to be used mostly
as condiments as well as a few luxuries, such as chocolate. This will allow
the crew to splurge on weekly special meals and a monthly feast, which
will be important to break up the monotony and isolation of long-term
space travel.”
Also working with Hunter and Levitsky are Rupert Spies, a chef and
lecturer in food and beverage management in Cornell’s School of Hotel
Administration who collaborates in recipe development and helps to make
the dishes attractive and appealing, and Adriana Rovers, formerly a
caterer and teacher of vegetarian cooking who prepares the recipes and
runs the tasting panels. Ammar Olabi, a graduate student in food science,
is responsible for the database structure of the procedural, sensory,
nutritional and cost data for the foods and for statistical analysis of the
data.
Graduate students Cheryl Greenwalt and Kenn Dai and undergraduates
Mike Tsay and Mark Schroeder also are associated with the project
through their research on development of novel food ingredients from
residues of farming and food processing in space.
With a three-year grant from NASA, the researchers launched the project
six months ago. They now are developing sweeteners and oils from wheat
and potatoes, looking both to the past and the future for food-processing
approaches. The researchers are looking at 1,000-year-old traditional
food-processing strategies as well as turning to their high-tech
laboratories. For example, they are using microorganisms to help convert
wheat straw and other crop residues into oil, and surplus wheat and
potato starch into a sweetener. They also are continually testing recipes
with substitutions as needed for ingredients that cannot be provided from
Earth or grown in a space colony.
Although several other institutions also are developing foods for space
travel, Cornell’s project is unique in that it also will include:
- labor and equipment cost analyses for each ingredient and recipe that
take into account time, power and space constraints. Costs will be scaled
for crew sizes ranging from 4 to 200 persons; - acceptability ratings of the menu items as assessed by volunteer panels.
This will be based not only on weekly taste panels at Cornell but on a
four-week controlled study near the end of the project to determine the
overall acceptability of the space diet; - integration of nutrient, cost and acceptability data for individual recipes
into an optimization model, which will select low-cost diets for any given
mission; - suggestions for foods and food ingredients necessary to import from
Earth and for the selection and development of future food crops for space; - training of future crew members, space habitat design engineers and
food-service personnel at the Johnson Space Center in how to prepare
the most appetizing meals with the greatest variety possible within the
constraints of a space diet.
“Food plays a critical role in the overall psychological well-being of
isolated crews,” Levitsky said. “We will, therefore, strive to make the diet
familiar to the crew, give them a sense of mastery in preparing the food
and a sense of pride or ownership in producing attractive and tasty dishes.
We’ll focus on these factors in a series of training workshops planned for
the third year of the project.”
Photo Caption:
Jean Hunter, professor of agricultural and biological engineering at
Cornell, displays hydroponically-grown plants for the space cuisine project. Frank DiMeo, Cornell University Photography.
