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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

space food

The Mars Farm: a Not-Too-Distant Reality?

The following is a guest post written by Jonathan Hua of Scrum Ventures.

The disruptive impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the world’s agricultural systems have been broad and varied. And they follow several years of challenging production and market conditions such as disruptive weather events and poor planting conditions. Although the pandemic exposed weaknesses in current food production processes, the food industry had a banner year in 2020. 

In the first few weeks of 2021, we’ve also seen several major VCs, entrepreneurs, philanthropists and even major corporations take an interest in new ways to produce food. They’ve been launching climate and sustainability funds focused on areas such as regenerative agriculture, sustainable food, renewable energy, healthcare and innovations in new materials, infrastructure, and water. At the same time, the past few years have brought significant progress in space travel, space tourism and exploration missions to the moon and Mars. 

These advancements and focus areas have many putting two and two together and asking: is it possible to produce food in space? If, as expected, one day humanity exhausts its natural resources on Earth and has to consider surviving elsewhere, we’ll have to answer many questions including how to grow food on space stations, in spaceships, and even on a completely different planet. 

Six-figure salads?

It isn’t too far-fetched to imagine space as the final farming frontier. There’s already a space garden, the Vegetable Production System, Veggie, on the International Space Station (ISS). Although Veggie is only about the size of a carry-on bag, it helps NASA study plant growth in microgravity and provides astronauts with nutrients. The problem? At roughly 16 pounds, Business Insider estimates Veggie costs $145,600 to $690,900 to transport onto the ISS—that’s an expensive salad. 

Veggie is just one example. The price of eating in space is prohibitively costly. This Columbia Tribune article estimates that it could cost as much as $18,000 just to send one 16-oz bottle of water weighing about one pound into space. Assuming some economies of scale and the unit economics of sending many months’ worth of food in a single trip, it’s probably safe to assume that it would cost anywhere between $5,000 to $10,000 per astronaut per meal.

Costs aren’t the only issue. There are also space-related constraints such as microgravity and lack of refrigeration and water. Food choices are limited as well. Most items have to be calorie-dense and have extraordinary shelf lives. 

The potential of vertical farming

Despite the challenges, finding a more sustainable food production system locally in space would be an endeavor with both immediate and long-term benefits. Vertical farming offers a viable solution to this food production problem. Controlled-environment agriculture promotes growth of veggies, herbs, and some fruits in limited spaces. In addition, vertical farms are optimized for year-round production and are less susceptible to extreme environmental conditions. 

Next, because vertical farms are closed systems, water supplies can be filtered and recycled to maximize efficiency. Sensors and software within the vertical farms can also regulate water usage. And, AI can optimize water usage to prevent over or underwatering. Finally, because vertical farms are highly automated, there is the potential for high productivity. 

This all sounds too good to be true, so what’s the catch? As with many things space-related, vertical farms are cost-intensive and limited in scope. Unless progress is made on both fronts, it will be challenging to even start to consider building them at any kind of scale in space. The long-term decline in cost of technology, as well as improved yields, will drive the success of a vertical farming operation in any location. If we can successfully pull this off, vertical farms will provide additional benefits that are unrelated to food consumption. For instance, plants produce oxygen that we will need to breathe in extraterrestrial climates. 

Drilling down: vertical farming by the numbers

If we’re going to start farming in space, we’ll need to understand the numbers in depth. Here’s what we’re seeing from some of our latest research. 

  • Facility costs: Building a vertical farm could cost upwards of $40M for each facility. According to this AgFunder article, AeroFarms’ facilities cover 70,000 square feet of space and will be able to grow 2 million pounds of greens annually. Vertical farms built in shipping containers cost quite a bit less. Usually, containers cost somewhere in the ballpark of $75,000 to $100,000, but are much smaller and will produce less food, so multiple containers would be required to scale up this kind of vertical farming system that could quickly increase costs. Location of real estate will also affect these costs.
  • Labor costs: Larger-scale vertical farms employ anywhere between 25-50 employees for each facility. Assuming most of these employees are being paid somewhere between $40,000 to $50,000 per year, that’s $1M to $1.25M in additional costs for labor to maintain these farms. The number of employees would need to be scaled down quite a bit in space, but the salaries would probably be higher as well.
  • Resource costs: The cost of water can be justified by recycling the water that isn’t used for the crops or lost via evaporation, but energy costs are currently one of the highest expenditures for vertical farms. Lots of LED lights are required to grow food in a vertical farm. Some estimates put it at around 3,500 kWh of energy a year to produce just 1 square meter of lettuce. 
  • Last-mile costs: Depending on size of loads, locations, and other factors, transportation and delivery costs can be quite significant. In space, vehicles would be in limited supply, and would need to be modified to handle different gravity effects and refrigeration, not to mention likely very high electricity or fuel costs to run. This cost could be quite difficult to justify.
  • Limited variety: Vertical farms are optimized for growing microgreens, herbs and a few types of fruits.

How to Make Vertical Farming More Feasible and Cost-Effective

Here are some of the strategies we need to consider to make vertical farming in space feasible.

  • Make real estate space available: We’ll need to make real estate space more readily available or subsidize prices for larger-scale vertical farm development.
  • Develop more tax incentives for vertical farming companies: Tax incentives will encourage companies to build, and decrease risks for investors who want to support the space. Right now, it’s primarily huge funds like SoftBank’s Vision Fund that have the capital and risk appetite to support the vertical farming space. Much more investment is required to bring vertical farming to a more commercial scale and to encourage other entrepreneurs to develop the complementary technologies needed to make it more cost-effective long-term.
  • Innovate LED technologies: Lighting accounts for the most significant energy use in a vertical farming system. It also has significant impacts on crop yield and time to maturity. Like the computer chip industry, innovations in LED technology will need to focus on stronger outputs in smaller and more energy-efficient form factors. Lights that can customize intensity for each plant and improvements in energy efficiency will be necessary.
  • Adopt renewable energy sources: Vertical farms should use more renewable energy sources like wind to help decrease energy unit cost, if the option is available on another planet. If there’s a way to harvest the sun’s energy more effectively on Mars, that would help as well. If sun exposure is weak on Mars, figuring out how to concentrate the sun’s rays and transmit them to use as energy on a vertical farm could be a worthy undertaking. 
  • Decrease the cost of hydroponics or aeroponics: There is no soil on the moon or on Mars, meaning that vertical farms in space will require the use of hydroponics or aeroponics, both of which can grow crops without soil by substituting soil with a mineral nutrient solution. Decreasing the cost of this growth medium, enhancing it to optimize yields and nutrition, or otherwise making it easier to produce at scale will help make vertical farming more feasible. Relying more on an aeroponic strategy that focuses on using nutrient-saturated water and mists rather than a more concentrated solution is likely the best strategy. 
  • Improve AI/IoT for greenhouses and vertical farms: Continuous monitoring and control of both environmental variables and crop growth are essential to the success of vertical farms. There are already many technologies for this, but more data and better algorithms will lead to better sensors and devices and more efficiencies that can cut down costs. Improvements in automation due to better AI/IoT can also decrease labor costs.
  • Choose crops wisely to begin with: At least initially, we’ll need to focus on crops with shorter production cycles and higher yields to cut down on resource requirements and use. Crops with year-round consumer demand should also be prioritized over more seasonal items to improve cost efficiencies.
  • Locate smartly: Make sure the vertical farms in space are built as close as possible to the densest population colonies to minimize transportation and logistics costs.
  • Build to withstand harsh environments: In space, there are other considerations that could make or break any attempts to implement vertical farms. For one, the facilities have to be able to withstand the harsh environmental conditions of the local terrain and climate. Next, it is unclear how differences in gravity, adverse environment and radiation exposure will affect crop yields, nutrition or even taste. Also, there’s the issue of food safety. New environments bring new microbes, bacteria and other organisms that could make food unsafe or toxic for human consumption. These are just a few of the many additional variables that will need to be considered. 

As we move toward developing vertical farms in space, the opportunities for budding founders and entrepreneurs to build successful space-focused food businesses are galactic. My hope is that we proceed with care and make sure our presence there does not defile the most pristine areas of the universe. We’ve already polluted it with space debris that we need to clean up. When it comes to space farming, humanity will need to work together to protect the environment that we will likely one day travel to and inhabit.

About Jonathan Hua

Jonathan is an investor with Scrum Ventures where he also helps run Scrum’s Food Tech Studio – Bites! a global program for startups of all stages who share a common vision of solving key challenges plaguing our food supply chain today, such as safety, waste reduction, and health.

Aleph Farms’ “Aleph Zero” Program Aims to Grow Cell-Based Steaks in Space

Aleph Farms, announced its new “Aleph Zero” program today, which aims to bring the production of cell-based meat into outer space to help humans become “multiplanetary.”

Aleph’s lab-grown, slaughter-free approach to creating meat could mean that astronauts may one day could create their own steaks and other protein on long-haul missions far away from any natural resources.

Based on the press release, there isn’t a lot of, err, meat on the bones of this announcement. The company just says that it “is securing strategic partnerships with technology companies and space agencies for long term collaborative research and development contracts” to integrate Aleph Farms’ technology into space programs.

It should be noted, however, that Aleph’s meat has already been to space. Last year the company successfully grew small-scale muscle tissue aboard the International Space Station.

For something that is literally a giant vacuum, space is getting increasingly crowded with food tech. NASA is researching how to grow chile peppers in space, we learned in March that romaine lettuce grown in space was safe to eat, the Zero G oven lets astronauts bake cookies in space, and last year a Japanese consortium launched its Space Food X initiative to feed people in space.

Working on feeding people in space may seem less pressing than feeding those in need here on Earth. But as Aleph points out in its release, if food can be created in micro-gravity and far away from natural resources up in space, those innovations can help us feed people living in extreme conditions here on Earth.

Good News, Astronauts — Lettuce Grown in Space is Safe to Eat and Also Nutritious

Astronauts hoping to eat salads during their interplanetary travels got some good news this week. NASA scientists have been examining the red romaine lettuce grown on the International Space Station (ISS) and just determined that it’s not only safe to eat — it’s also just as nutritious as lettuce grown on Earth (h/t New York Times).

The lettuce was grown from 2014 to 2016 in Veggie, a hydroponic growth chamber onboard the ISS. NASA scientists have been examining samples culled from Veggie and comparing them to romaine grown here on Earth under similar agricultural conditions (same humidity, temperature, etc). Today they released a paper which states that the two lettuces had similar nutritional values, though the space-grown lettuce had higher levels of (unharmful) microbes, likely due to their proximity to the astronauts.

Of course, astronauts cannot survive on lettuce alone; nor will they be able to rely on packaged food for multi-year journeys (the trip to Mars will take at least seven months, one way). Since 2016 Veggie has also grown other plants including mizuna and cabbage. NASA scientists are working to launch the Española chile pepper into space, which would make it the first fruiting plant grown and harvested on the ISS. And over at the University of California, Riverside they’re hard at work developing tomatoes with smaller stems and leaves that would be better suited to space travel.

Interplanetary dining exploration goes far beyond fruits and vegetables. In December astronauts baked sugar cookies on the ISS with Zero G Kitchen’s special oven. SpaceX is flying coffee and hemp cultures into space this year to see how zero gravity will impact the plants’ growth. On the protein front, Aleph Farms has successfully grown animal muscle tissue cells on the ISS. Japan is also experimenting with new ways to feed astronauts through its 30+ company initiative, Space Food X.

According to the NASA study, this Romaine experiment indicated that “leafy green vegetable crops can produce safe, edible, fresh food to supplement to the astronauts’ diet.” Good to know that space travelers will have a salad to balance out their space cookies and wine.

Food Tech News: A Trash Robot Sorts Recycling, plus Space Mac & Cheese

You made it to the weekend! Hopefully you don’t have too much of a candy hangover from Valentine’s Day festivities. Over here at The Spoon, we’re laser focused on Customize, our food personalization summit coming up in a little less than two weeks (!) in NYC. (Wanna come? Use code SPOON15 to get 15 percent off tickets.)

But conference or no conference, cool food tech news keeps on happening. This week we’ve rounded up stories about recyclable-sorting trash bins, space mac & cheese, and a plant-based burger taste test featuring Bill Gates. Enjoy!

TrashBot automates recycling and waste sorting

It’s something most of us do every day — try to figure out whether our cup/bowl/utensil belongs should be thrown into the trash, recycling, or compost. Startup CleanRobotics is trying to automate that choice for us with its TrashBot, a metal bin that will automatically sort your garbage for you. FastCompany wrote about the company this week, which is trying to streamline the waste management process and also gather data on what we’re throwing away. To use the device, just toss in your item and the robot uses a combination of camera and sensors to determine in which internal bin — recycling, landfill, etc. — it should go.

Scientists develop mac & cheese for space travel

It looks like astronauts’ menu might now include mac & cheese. Scientists at Washington State University (WSU) announced that they have developed a way to make macaroni and cheese shelf stable for up to three years (h/t IFT). And not the boxed stuff either — this is the ready-to-eat version. The new offering, which uses thermal sterilization and a special protective film, has triple the lifespan of your typical ready-to-eat mac and cheese. WSU is currently testing the product with the Army.

Photo: Mark Rober

Bill Gates taste tests plant-based and beef burgers

This week Bill Gates appeared in a video by YouTube star Mark Rober (h/t GeekWire). In it he talked about meat alternatives and, most importantly, did a mini taste test between two offerings: one plant-based Impossible burger, and one burger from Seattle classic Dick’s burgers. Gates, who has invested in both Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat, said that the plant-based burger was “quite good” and “light years away from what they used to like.”

As We Enter a New Decade, Space Food Has Suddenly Rocketed Into Renewed Prominence

As a kid growing up in the 70s and 80s, I’ve always had a fascination with space food.

Whether it was the idea of astronauts drinking Tang or reading stories about how the Space Shuttle crews would prepare their meals and then try to eat in the microgravity environment of space, I couldn’t get enough info about how human space travelers fed themselves.

In a way, it was the very idea that these rigorously trained astronauts flying billion dollar equipment hundreds of miles above the earth’s surface still had to find time to prepare a meal that made the idea of space travel that much more relatable to a kid like me.

And so now, for someone who has always been fascinated with the idea of feeding people hundreds or millions of miles away from earth, I have to say this past year has been an exciting one. That’s because every few weeks or so a new story pops up about some new research effort to develop ways to feed people in zero gravity.

In short, as we leave one decade and enter a new one, it seems space food has rocketed back into prominence.

Here’s a sample of some of the space food news from 2019:

In October, Aleph Farms grew meat cells in space. For the first time ever, meat cells were produced in zero gravity as this Israeli startup made “great steaks” using a 3D bioprinter in the Russian section of the International Space Station.

In November, a Cygnus rocket launched carrying samples of red wine. A French startup called Space Cargo Unlimited is sending the vino into orbit with the intention of studying how space radiation and being in a state of constant free-fall impacts biological aging processes.

Accompanying the wine on this same rocket trip into space was an oven designed for actually cooking food in orbit. Astronauts usually eat pre-cooked food heated with water, but if this oven works they will actually be able to cook food in space. In late December, a space crew aboard the International Space Station baked sugar cookies using the space oven and will bring them back to earth to study them.

Just last week, we heard that SpaceX will be flying coffee and hemp cultures into space this year to see how what the impact zero gravity has on the plants. Colorado-based agricultural company Front Range Biosciences is partnering with SpaceCells USA Inc. and BioServe Space Technologies to put 480 samples aboard a March 2020 cargo flight from Elon Musk’s space startup.

Elon’s brother Kimball also is thinking about feeding people in space with his own startup Square Roots, developing self-contained hydroponic farm modules that he says could one day be used on Mars.

Earlier this year we heard about Space Food-X, a Japanese consortium of 30 or so companies, researchers and governmental organizations looking to develop ways to better feed people in space. Led by Japanese space agency JAXA, venture capital firm RealTech Fund and consulting firm SigmaXYZ, the group has a five-phase plan stretching through 2040 to develop sustainable food systems.

Above: The future of space food as envisioned by Japan’s Space Food-X

With the glut of space food news over the past year or so, it got me to wondering why? Why is there a rapidly growing interest in feeding people in space?

One obvious reason is the renewed interest in space travel in the US and abroad. With Space-X and Blue Origin inching us closer to more affordable space travel and Russia, China and the European Union investing heavily in space programs, it just makes sense that developing food systems for space would be a part of that.

I also think it’s because we’ve moving closer to a reality of long-term space travel and permanent habitation. Whether it’s the actual habitation of Mars or some other place in the galaxy, simply packing up freeze dried food won’t cut it. If there are people on a space station or a settlement on Mars, we need to develop ways to feed them over long time periods in space, which means actually growing food in space.

Finally, if we learned anything from the first space race between the US and the Soviet Union, it’s that the effort to feed people in orbit ends up paying dividends here on earth. Sure, you get fun foods like Tang and freeze dried ice cream, but there’s also big ideas like gas fermentation born out of space agency research decades ago that is being further developed today as a way to create more sustainable protein sources.

So as we enter a new decade, I have to say the space food nerd in me is getting pretty excited, not only because it seems we’re seeing real effort across the globe to develop sustainable food systems for space that could help would-be Mars colonizers feed themselves someday, but also because I’m excited to see how all this effort to develop food in the toughest of environments could be used to feed us non-astronauts here on Earth.

SpaceX is Flying Coffee and Hemp Plants into Outer Space

Will coffee beans grown in the endless expanse of outer space taste any different? We’ll soon find out.

Colorado-based agricultural company Front Range Biosciences is partnering with SpaceCells USA Inc. and BioServe Space Technologies to send plant tissue culture from coffee and hemp up into Outer Space next year. The 480 samples will be packed aboard a March 2020 SpaceX cargo flight and remain in space for 30 days.

According to a press release, the purpose of this inter-space journey is to see how the cultures will (or won’t) mutate in zero-gravity aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Scientists will track whether any mutations will stick once the plants are brought back down to earth.

This will be one of the first times that a company gathers data on the effects of space travel on hemp and coffee cell cultures. Through the experiment, Front Range Biosciences hopes to learn more about how plants can adapt to climate change.

Coffee especially is a temperamental crop and threatened by more extreme weather conditions, like rising temperatures and drought, caused by climate change. To combat that companies are experimenting with new techniques to create more resistant coffee crops, from CRISPR gene editing to, apparently, space mutations.

The Colorado company may be the first to do concrete data on hemp and coffee plants in outer space, but Front Range Biosciences is far from the first company to launch food into zero-gravity conditions. Earlier this year Dubai startup Space Roasters claimed it would create optimal java by roasting beans in space, but now its website is an unrelated roasting blog, so I’m guessing that… didn’t work out. Japan’s Space Food X has an entire initiative figuring out how to feed people in zero gravity. And just last month a dozen bottles of Bordeaux were sent to the ISS for twelve months of intergalactic aging.

It’s still early days in the field of space agricultural experimentation, and Front Range Biosciences is just beginning its intergalactic plant tissue tests. But I for one can’t wait to sample a cup of joe made from interstellar beans. Far out.

Astronauts Bake Cookies with Zero G Kitchen’s Space Oven

Making cookies in space is definitely not an E-Z bake. But thanks to a special space oven from Zero G Kitchen and Nanoracks, astronauts aboard the International Space Station were able to get into the holiday spirit yesterday by making cookies… they just couldn’t eat them (h/t to The Verge).

On Twitter yesterday morning, astronaut Christina H. Koch posted a picture of herself along with fellow ISS resident Luca Parmitano and a fresh baked cookie still in its space age baking container.

The cookies, however, can’t be eaten. Since the oven is still very experimental, astronauts aren’t going to risk eating improperly cooked food while floating around in space. Instead, the cookies have been frozen and will be sent back down to earth for analysis.

Zero G’s space oven is pretty cool. As we wrote back in November when the oven was launched into space:

The new oven, which was built through a collaboration between Zero G Kitchen and Nanoracks, is actually quite fascinating. It’s a cylindrical chamber, and food is held in special silicone trays with 40 micron filters that allow heat and steam to escape and are held in aluminum frames so they can be securely racked.

This isn’t the first time that the oven has been used. The Verge reports that a number of cookie batches were made aboard the ISS this month to varying degrees of at least visual success.

Fresh-baked cookies aren’t the only creature comfort aboard the ISS that the astronauts can’t enjoy. Wine was also shot to the ISS aboard the same ship that brought the oven. But that’s just aging in space for 12 months before being returned to Earth, unopened.

The Space Station Just Got More Fun with the Arrival of Wine and a Cookie Baking Oven

If you’re looking for literal high-end food, space is evidently the place as two different delectable payloads shot up to the International Space Station (ISS) over the weekend. A Cygnus rocket launched on November 2 and successfully docked with ISS today carrying a bottle of wine from Europe and a cookie-baking oven from the U.S., all in the name of (delicious) science.

TechCrunch reports that like a celestial sommelier, the French startup Space Cargo Unlimited sent a samples of red wine to the space station. Sadly, astronauts won’t be able to enjoy this astro wine, but instead just have to keep it up in space for 12 months before it’s sent back down to Earth. According to Quartz, this space faring wine mission is formally called “Mission WISE, for Vitis Vinum in Spatium Experimentia” and will study how exposure to space radiation and being in a state of constant free-fall impacts biological aging processes.

It might be a little on-the-nose that a French startup sends up wine while an American company figures out how to bake chocolate chip cookies in space, but here we are.

Space.com writes that typically on the space station, food is heated or reheated via hot water. The new oven, which was built through a collaboration between Zero G Kitchen and Nanoracks, is actually quite fascinating. It’s a cylindrical chamber, and food is held in special silicone trays with 40 micron filters that allow heat and steam to escape and are held in aluminum frames so they can be securely racked. It’s quite complicated, and I recommend reading all the details on Zero G’s site.

As rich entrepreneurs like Elon Musk with his SpaceX and Jeff Bezos with Blue Origin push space flight with an eye towards traveling to Mars, there are a number of startups shooting for the culinary stars. Last month, Aleph Farms said it had grown small scale cell cultured muscle tissue aboard the ISS. Space Roasters wants to roast coffee beans using the heat of re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere, and Australian company Vostok Space Beer is creating, well, beer that can be imbibed in space.

Operating on a much bigger scale is a company like Japan’s Space Food X, which is a consortium of 30 technology and food companies as well as universities and investment firms, all working to figure out the daunting task of food production in space.

One thing’s for sure, any space-faring journey to Mars is going to require meals paired with more than a few bottles of Pinot to help pass the time.

Aleph Farms Says it Has Grown Meat Cells in Space

Israeli lab-grown food company Aleph Farms on Monday claimed a world’s, or rather, a galaxy’s first, announcing that it has successfully grown small-scale muscle tissue on the International Space Station, which the company points out is “248 miles away from any natural resources.”

Aleph Farms says it uses the natural process of muscle-tissue regeneration in a lab setting to grow its steaks. The Sept. 26 experiment was conducted in the Russian segment of the ISS, using a 3D bioprinter developed by Russia’s 3D Bioprinting Solutions. The U.S.’s Meal Source Technologies and Finless Foods also collaborated on the experiment.

Russian cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka conducting the experiment on the ISS. (Courtesy Aleph Farms)

Not only does the experiment prove that astronauts may one day grow their own steaks, the company says, but it shows that Aleph’s technology could be used anywhere on Earth, despite access to water and other resources. Growing cows for slaughter is one of the most resource-heavy food production processes for the planet, which is why many startups are seeking to replace beef, whether through cultivated or plant-based meat.

“In space, we don’t have 10,000 or 15,000 liters of water available to produce one kilogram of beef,” Didier Toubia, co-founder and CEO of Aleph Farms, said in the press release. “This joint experiment marks a significant first step toward achieving our vision to ensure food security for generations to come, while preserving our natural resources.”

While Aleph had Earth’s climate crisis in mind when conducting this experiment, 30 Japanese companies launched a consortium this year to figure out how to feed people in space. But hopefully, all of the solutions currently in the works will mean we won’t have to flee to another planet for survival.

Food Tech News: Lyft Discounts Grocery Trips, (Plant) Life on Mars

Happy Saturday, all. Before you head off to kids’ soccer games or boozy brunches, catch up on this week’s food tech news roundup. We’ve got stories about Lyft discounting rides to help folks in food deserts have better access to fresh product, Pizza Hut trying out vegan cheese, and a new concept for a hydroponic farm on Mars.

Lyft offers discounted rides to grocery stores
Rideshare company Lyft is partnering with nonprofit Martha’s Table to launch a new initiative connecting people to fresh food (h/t Pymnts). Called the Grocery Access Program, Lyft will offer discounted rides to and from supermarkets to families living in two (undisclosed) neighborhoods in Washington, D.C. that don’t have ready access to grocery stores. Next up, the rideshare giant plans to roll out the program in more cities like Atlanta, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

Photo: Dartmouth.

Design for Martian Greenhouse wins NASA award
A team of Dartmouth students has won NASA’s 2019 BIG Idea Challenge with their design for a greenhouse that can grow food on Mars (h/t Futurism). The hydroponic dome, which is equipped with a tank of nutrient solution and LED lights, would be able to grow up to eight crops, including kale, sweet potato, soy, strawberry, and wheat. Students estimate that it could create enough food to feed four astronauts 3,100 calories per day over 600 days. Bonus: It could fit in a single 20,000 pound package.

Did we miss anything new? Tweet us @TheSpoonTech!

Meet Space Food X, Japan’s New Initiative to Feed People in Space

With all the challenges earth faces in the form of global warming, resource constraints and geopolitical unrest, many among us are already working on technology to get humanity into space for the long haul.

And sure, while we’re still working out how to get a bunch of us up into space permanently, perhaps the biggest puzzle we need to solve for long-term space colonization is figuring out how we’ll feed ourselves. And while it’d be nice to just store a bunch of Funyuns and Tang for those multiyear trips up to the nearest moon base or space station, the reality is long-term space survival will require self-sustaining, circular food systems that can scale and operate over decades.

Luckily for us, Japan is here for it in the form of a new initiative called Space Food X, a program to develop new food technologies and systems to solve the challenges of food production in space.

At the center of this new initiative is a consortium of 30 different organizations from Japan comprised of a variety of technology and food companies, universities, investment firms and researchers. The group of 30 is led by three founding members: JAXA (Japan’s space agency, the equivalent of US’s NASA), RealTech Fund (a Japanese venture fund) and SigmaXYZ, a consulting firm and organization.

(As both disclosure and humble-brag, I have to note that SigmaXYZ is also a partner with our company, as we co-produce Japan’s leading foodtech event in the Smart Kitchen Summit Japan. In fact, the Space Food X Deputy Director is Tanaka “Hiro” Hirotaka, one of the chairs for SKS Japan. And yes, you can bet I will get Hiro to talk space food at SKS in Seattle).

You can see all the companies participating in Space Food X below:

What will Space Food X be working on? From the (translated) website:

In order to live for a long time on the moon or Mars, various techniques and wisdom are required, such as techniques for efficiently producing food with less resources locally. In addition, the problem of food is a common issue even on the earth where the population increases. We at Space Food X combine the power of superior technology, business and culture from Japan to solve the food problem that is a common problem of the universe and the earth.

The announcement points to a variety of recent technology and food science developments in the areas of cellular meat, algae and ‘plant factories’ that will be core to their new efforts to develop long term solutions, as well advancements in robotics, AI and 3D food printing.

From the (translated) release:

By making the best use of these excellent technologies and food culture, it is possible to construct closed material circulation systems, food production systems, food supply services, etc. with a high degree of superiority in space life. Products and services are considered to be able to solve the food problem that is a common issue in the universe and the earth.

The new group has a phased approach that will ultimately move towards fully sustainable space based food systems. The five phases which will take place over a twenty year time period culminating in 2040. This future is visualized in the image below. Just look at those happy space residents sitting around a table, laughing, enjoying their space food!:

Of course, Japan isn’t alone in focusing on developing new food technologies to feed people in space. NASA and the European Space Agency as well as Russia and China’s space agencies are all working on developing long-term space food solutions. That said, none of the other efforts will produce teleported sushi (Open Meals, the company behind this idea – is a part of Spacefood X), so they’re all instantly at a serious disadvantage.

Stay tuned for more information on this effort (and for an upcoming presentation on the topic at SKS North America).

Podcast: Talking Space Food With Angelo Vermeulen

Ever since reading The Martian years ago, I’ve been fascinated with the idea of eating in space.  Whether it be during a long interstellar journey to another planet, living in a permanent spacecraft like the Space station, or colonizing Mars or the Moon, the book (and later the film) crystalized for me the monumental challenge of solving for long-term survival and sustenance outside of our own home planet.

One person who’s been thinking about this challenge for a long time is Angelo Vermeulen. As the founder of SEAD, the commander of the first HI-SEAS mission,  and as part of the European Space Agency’s MELiSSA project, Vermeulen has dedicated much of his career working on ideas for how to solve the problem of feeding humans in space.

In this episode, we talk about his experience as commander of the first HI-SEAS mission, some of his key takeaways, and the current state of space food research. We also explore how thinking about food for space could change how we feed ourselves here on earth.

As always, you can listen to the podcast by clicking play below, downloading it directly or by subscribing to the Smart Kitchen Show on Apple Podcasts.