Creating an independent food system in space

Kurzfassung

There is a reinvigoration of human space travel and the goal is to establish a moon base with a constant human presence by 2030 to eventually bring mankind to Mars. Missions to the Moon come with a myriad of challenges and even though we may have the required technology to bring humans to the Moon, we do not have the food system to sustain them. Ultimately food is a limiting factor for human space travel. Due to resource and cost limitations and food acceptability challenges, future lunar habitats cannot rely solely on resupply missions from Earth. As a result, in situ food production becomes a necessity. There is a variety of research on how to provide food for space missions, such as insect farming, cultivated meat and Controlled Environmental Agriculture (CEA) where projects such as the EDEN ISS developed by the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), have shown promise in closed-loop food production during space analog missions. However, there are still certain gaps to fill if food production on the moon is ever to become truly independent, variable and nutritionally adequate. For instance, certain areas such as nutrient rich crop production, and post-harvest management such as food storage and food processing have been overlooked. Food processing will not only extend shelf life and increase the nutritional qualities of certain foods, but also create new products, and introduce new crop varieties e.g., staple foods such as cereals and tubers. Similarly, alternative sources of protein such as cultivated meat and insects needs processing, preparation and storage to be acceptable. Subsequently leading to a highly sufficient and variable diet over the long run. Furthermore, food processing may lead to better caretaking of side streams from the greenhouse or crew waste, which in turn can be refined into useful products that promote the circularity of the closed-loop habitat. Moreover, space food research lacks a holistic multi-factored approach to test the synergies between different innovations as well as with humans in the loop, which is a requisite to accelerate current food production research and innovations. The goal of the project is to integrate post-harvest technologies into CEA greenhouses to develop a multi-purpose closed loop food production facility for future lunar habitats, as the current roadmaps of international space agencies are to establish a constant human presence on the Moon before the end of the decade. The project will deliver a system analysis of post-harvest management on the Moon. A holistic systems approach will be adopted to address the challenges and benefits of integrating post-harvest technologies into the closed loop food production system for space applications. The post-harvest technologies, such as food processing, storage and preparation subsystems will be evaluated and incorporated into the system to ensure a sustainable and efficient food handling and production process. This will provide a technological layout of a post-harvest management facility with respect to nutritional requirements and current primary production methods. Furthermore, an updated crop choice methodology will be provided to include macronutrient production and side stream management, along with a production planning methodology. This will deliver a detailed conceptual and technical design of a post-harvest management module along with a framework and a roadmap for food production in space. The outcomes of this project will help in the development of a post-harvest management module in connection to a greenhouse based on the technologies and the outcomes of the EDEN ISS greenhouse. This is an international collaboration that will create a multi-purpose closed loop food production facility that will also serve as a unique R&D platform for research and innovation for sustainable food production, side stream and biowaste management as well as other related topics.