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Future Astronauts May Survive On Eating Silkworms
sciencehabit writes "Science reports that silkworms may be an ideal food source for future space missions. They breed quickly, require little space and water, and generate smaller amounts of excrement than poultry or fish. They also contain twice as many essential amino acids as pork does and four times as much as eggs and milk. Even the insect's inedible silk, which makes up 50% of the weight of the dry cocoon, could provide nutrients: The material can be rendered edible through chemical processing and can be mixed with fruit juice, sugar, and food coloring to produce jam."
Now Hershey's can spin this nasty incident as test marketing of their new Space Brownies!
~Philly
From what I know they're merely aware of the problem and haven't fully solved it, unless I'm really mistaken there's no way for current spacesuits to completely shield astronauts from radiation outside the earth's magnetic field.
Do you D?
Benchilada eats silkworm pupae live on video, So You Don't Have To. (not mentioned in the video is the fact that his friend, helping him, started throwing up convulsively soon after they finished filming the episode.)
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
How are they served in Korea? Sounds like you ate them whole... cooked or raw? Can you get them fried? (yes I'm from the south). If they taste like beans can you grind them up into a hummus or bean dip? Refried worms, mmmm.
moox. for a new generation.
Good one.
Just wanna point out that we had always been eating insect parts in jams, canned fruits, and other products, without being aware.
That said ... EEEEWWWW!! Over my dead body!
If you have a Korean market near you, you can easily find cans of silkworm pupas in some sort of paste/sauce. My mom used to get them (she's Korean) until she realized what it was she was buying/eating.
This guy's the limit!
So why not just bring human-edible food instead of silk worm food?
"Human-edible food" is like this simple loop that most people here should understand:
---> for (int x=100; x--; x>0)
After the function ends, the astronaunts die. I think I've read that astronauts "consume" 10kg of materials (air,water,food) per day so that it would cost 300kg to support somebody for a month if nothing ever got recycled. What space colonists need is a simple food-chain like this:
----> while (1) { plants(Sun, Fertiziler); silkworm(Plants); humans(Silkworm); }
In this way, you can recycle the processed waste from the silkworm and the humans (i.e. the "Fertilizer") and combine that with available Sunlight to generate a continuous cycle of food. And when "not dying" is the goal, it really won't matter how it tastes.
Support the 30 Hour Work Week!!!
From what I understand, it's almost impossible for people to have sex in Zero-G. Male Astronauts have apparently tried quite a bit, even with the help of drugs, but they -can't- get an erection.
This makes sense since most of the blood in your body flows to your head when you're in Zero-G.
Sorry to burst all of your geeky dreams.
Steve over at The Sneeze posted his experience eating silkworms. I can't say they look overly appetizing.
The ocean is connected to the land as far as ecosystems go. A single asteroid can kill off both land and oceanic populations.
On the other hand if you had viable terrestrial and space populations then a single asteroid would have a much more difficult go at it.
And it isn't just asteroids that we have to worry about. It isn't a matter of if the surface of this planet will become uninhabitable to humans it is a more a matter of when.
Space Colonization is a matter of survival of the species and other species as well. Also we may just learn something along the way.
Cut urchin in half with kitchen shears while enjoying the spines moving about in your hand. Add a dash of soy sauce. Eat with spoon. Repeat.
I think you just made PETA's hit list for that comment.