NASA has selected 18 U.S. teams to receive a total of $450,000 for ideas that could feed astronauts on future missions, as part of the Deep Space Food Challenge. Each team will receive $25,000.
"NASA is excited to engage the public in developing technologies that could fuel our deep space explorers," said Jim Reuter, associate administrator for NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate, in a statement. "Our approach to deep space human exploration is strengthened by new technological advances and diverse community input. This challenge helps us push the boundaries of exploration capabilities in ways we may not recognize on our own."
NASA, in coordination with the Canadian Space Agency, opened the Deep Space Food Challenge in January. The competition asked innovators to design food production technologies or systems that met specific requirements: They would need to use minimal resources and produce minimal waste. The meals they produced would have to be safe, nutritious, and delicious for long-duration human exploration missions.
NASA's judges grouped submissions based on the food they envisioned producing. Among the designs were systems that used ingredients to create ready-to-eat foods such as bread, as well as dehydrated powders that could be processed into more complex food products. Others involved cultivated plants and fungi or engineered or cultured food such as cultured meat cells.
The winning teams, in alphabetical order, are:
Astra Gastronomy of San Francisco, California
BeeHex of Columbus, Ohio
BigRedBites of Ithaca, New York
Biostromathic of Austin, Texas
Cosmic Eats of Cary, North Carolina
Deep Space Entomoculture of Somerville, Massachusetts
Far Out Foods of St. Paul, Minnesota
Hefvin of Bethesda, Maryland
Interstellar Lab of Los Angeles
Kemel Deltech USA of Cape Canaveral, Florida
Mission: Space Food of Mountain View, California
Nolux of Riverside, California
Project MIDGE of La Crescenta-Montrose, California
RADICLE-X of Brooklyn, New York
SIRONA NOMs of Golden, Colorado
Space Bread of Hawthorne, Florida
Space Lab Café of Boulder, Colorado
µBites of Carbondale, Illinois
Details about the winners and their food can be found here.
NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency's website will air a show on the Deep Space Food Challenge at 11 a.m. EST on Nov. 9 with details about the competition, winning solutions, and what could be next for the teams.
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