A new alternative to food production in space settlements
- Paper number
IAC-09.A1.6.1
- Author
Dr. Thomas Bouvet, International Astronautical Federation, France
- Coauthor
Prof. Hervé This, AgroParisTech, France
- Coauthor
Mr. Jean-Pierre Haigneré, Astronaute Club Européen (ACE), France
- Coauthor
Prof. Volker Hessel, Institut für Mikrotechnik Mainz GmbH, Germany
- Year
2009
- Abstract
Exploration is not only about expanding the human frontier. It is now about permanently living in space. Given prohibitive costs of transportation from Earth, space settlers will have to live off the land, producing means of subsistence from in-situ resource. Food is obviously pivotal to a sustained life in space, as it fulfills both nutritious and psychological functions. Yet, food production in space outposts will be subject to specific drivers and constraints: limited living space, weightlessness or reduced gravity, necessity of a simplified and automated process, demand of food security, diversity, and gustative quality. Food production in space is most often addressed following a plant growing / processing approach. Such complex process is extremely challenging within the constraints of space settlements. The authors propose an alternative treatment: capitalize on knowledge produced by the scientific discipline called molecular gastronomy and use new technical applications of this knowledge (in particular “note by note cooking” by robots) to perform a constructive cuisine with an automated food micro-reactor, from basic food components produced by micro-organisms. Despite its intrinsic difficulties, this method is showed to be more space and time intensive, energy efficient, automatable, insensitive to microgravity, and conducive to more food diversity, when compared to the traditional food production process. This paper analyzes the relevance of a new food production paradigm in the context of space settlements. It focuses on food preparation, and will specifically address the production of ingredients in a subsequent publication.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
(absent)