Together, NASA and CSA, space agencies of the United States and Canada, respectively, began the “Deep Space Food Challenge”which can be translated as “deep space food challenge”.
Through this initiative, both entities seek to encourage the development of new technologies or food production systems optimized for consumption during space missions.
Deep Space Food Challenge, initiative in search of food innovations focused on space
This call seeks new food proposals that require minimal inputs and maximize the production of food that, in addition to being safe to consume under the conditions of a long-duration space mission, must also be nutritious, tasty and also have the potential to benefit future consumers on Earth.
In the immediate term, this initiative focuses on the search for innovations that will allow the crews of the next NASA and CSA missions to be provided with the nutritious food they want to eat, with the particularity that they are enjoyable under the conditions of life outside of our planet.
Among the wide variety of formats under which ready-to-eat foods can be purchased today, there are several alternatives that can be used or adapted for consumption during a space mission. However, under this call what is sought is to optimize the food selection criteria, guaranteeing that with the possible innovations to be discovered, the process of creating, cultivating and/or preparing food does not take a long time or be unpleasant, together with with satisfying the culinary, nutritional and comfort criteria mentioned above.
The call for the Deep Space Food Challenge is open until December 17, 2022, with three categories of applications available: for the Canadian public, for the US public and for participants from the rest of the world.
In an erroneous way, NASA is popularly attributed with the innovations of Teflon, the Velcro closure and powdered soft drinks. Though It is not about own developments of the space agency, its past missions helped in the popularization of these products.
Now, under the auspices of these two North American space agencies, a new alternative could emerge to satisfy the food needs of space mission crews, through the identification and promotion of the development and demonstration of new technologies, systems or approaches for the production of food designed for this context.
