Most people probably haven’t taken a bite out of a raw onion. Why would you? And even fewer have done so and considered it delicious.

But if you’re an astronaut flying in space and your diet consists largely of freeze-dried packaged food, I’m pretty sure you might get a hankering for something fresh.

That’s exactly what happened to former astronaut Shannon Lucid, who spent six months in low Earth orbit aboard the Russian space station Mir. When a cargo replenishment ship arrived carrying fresh onions, Lucid grabbed one and took a bite. After months of eating shelf-stable space food, something crisp and fresh tasted pretty darn good.

That story has stuck with NASA’s food scientists for decades, and as the space agency prepares to send astronauts on long-haul, multi-year missions to Mars, it is looking to diversify away from a menu that primarily consists of packaged food. This push toward fresh food is the central driver behind NASA’s Mars to Table Challenge, a competition that is asking food scientists, chefs, and anyone else with a good idea to design a complete food ecosystem for Mars.

Readers of The Spoon may remember the Deep Space Food Challenge, a multi-year collaborative effort between NASA and the Canadian Space Agency that began in 2021. That initiative focused on discrete technologies such as fermentation systems and space ovens and provided a showcase for companies like Solar Foods, which leveraged technologies with roots in research conducted during the space race.

But NASA’s latest challenge reflects a different focus as the agency sets its sights on Mars.

As Grace Douglas, lead scientist for NASA’s Advanced Food Technology Research effort, explained during a Mars to Table Challenge webinar, the agency isn’t looking for a single food that can meet every nutritional need of a crew. Instead, NASA is seeking technologies and systems that can integrate into a larger food ecosystem.

“We’re not looking for a larger food system that will fill every nutritional need of the crew,” Douglas said. “Rather, pieces of an overall system that will significantly contribute to the comprehensive food system.”

In other words, NASA’s focus has shifted away from individual technologies and toward complete food systems designed to produce food over many years in space. That’s because future crews will need food production, processing, storage, preparation, preservation, waste management, and nutrition all working together as part of an integrated whole.

The shift is necessary in large part because a Mars mission is vastly different from the type of low-Earth-orbit missions Lucid and other astronauts experienced in the past. While six months is a long time, space stations have access to regular resupply missions. A Mars expedition, by contrast, could keep astronauts away from Earth for years, with no cargo vehicles arriving with fresh onions or anything else. Future crews will need to produce much of their own food, recycle resources, and operate with a degree of independence never before attempted in human spaceflight.

Douglas noted during the Mars to Table kickoff event that food destined for the International Space Station can already be months or even a year old before astronauts eat it. A Mars mission could require food systems capable of maintaining quality and nutrition for five years or longer. NASA’s current room-temperature shelf-stable foods don’t meet that requirement.

But beyond shelf life, the bigger focus of NASA’s renewed interest in food is nutrition. Astronauts tend to lose weight in space, and maintaining body mass is one of the strongest indicators of overall crew health. Yet getting astronauts to eat enough has proven difficult, in large part because of menu fatigue.

On the ISS, astronauts cycle through menus repeatedly over the course of six-month missions. One of the biggest complaints isn’t necessarily that the food tastes bad, but that astronauts keep seeing the same foods over and over again.

NASA researchers also know that meals provide structure and connection to others. With missions that could last for years, these shared rituals become that much more important.

This is why NASA is casting a wide net for participants in its challenge. In addition to engineers and food technologists, the agency hopes to attract chefs, architects, designers, and others who don’t typically think of space exploration as part of their core focus. NASA is looking for ideas that can help shape entirely new food production systems.

What does that actually entail?

Teams entering the competition must submit a design for an operational food system for a 15-person Mars crew that can function for more than 500 Martian days while providing 100% of the crew’s nutritional needs. Submissions must include a two-week meal plan, a detailed concept of operations, habitat layouts, a walkthrough video, and even a Python-based simulation model that can be tested using NASA’s BioSim life-support platform.

Teams must also demonstrate how their system handles everything from food production and meal preparation to waste management, resource recycling, and contingency scenarios. NASA further requires that no more than half of the calories in a proposed system come from Earth-supplied foods, forcing participants to design systems that produce most of their food locally.

Registration is open to July 31st, with final submissions due August 14th. NASA is offering up to $750,000 in prize money to eligible U.S. teams, including a $300,000 grand prize and up to three $50,000 category awards recognizing innovations in areas such as crew experience, transformational innovation, and terrestrial impact. 

Winners are expected to be announced in September.