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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 we just have to solve this space radiation issue and how to shield astronauts from it.
Do you D?
so what do they taste like??
can we make them taste like bacon?
If you can find a way to properly polymerise their silk, you could even make plastic knives and forks (or better, a spork) out of their silk to eat them with.
Breed larger silkworks and you could even use them to make the plates to eat them from! BONUS!
They started drinking their own pee, and now they're gonna eat silkworms? No wonder why kids don't dream of becoming astronauts anymore, this thing is more awful than Survivor!
You just got troll'd!
"What's for dinner tonight, Dave?"
"Oh, I don't know, Frank, how about... MORE FU(#1NG WORMS!?"
"Just calm down and pass the worm jam."
Fear Factor: Astronaut Edition
Now Hershey's can spin this nasty incident as test marketing of their new Space Brownies!
~Philly
Seen 'em all over the place in Korea from street carts. They always have this particular insect trifecta: Silk Worms, Crickets, and freshwater Snails:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beondegi
This is where I get my recommended daily allowance of "Foot in Mouth."
Do we really need to waste precious cargo space and weight to bring up food coloring? I suppose astronauts might want green or purple catchup too.
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.
Astronaut 1, "But where in my contact does it say that I have to eat the same food for breakfast everyday for three years?"
Astronaut 2,"Paragraph 47, subsection 19, cause 9a. You can find it in the index under S.U.A.E.I."
Astronaut 1,"S.U.A.E.I.?"
Astronaut 2,"Shut up and eat it."
Apologies to Babylon 5.
"Bah!" - Dogbert
Even better is the Spnife: round enough to hold soup, but sharp enough to slice your mouth.
so what do they taste like?? can we make them taste like bacon?
Last year I was in Korea where the streets are lined with vendors frying up silkworm pupae on the street as an, *ahem*, delicacy. The smell wafting down the road can only be described as a cross between death and pus. I would eat my fellow astronauts over silkworms.
The big issue with space missions in mass. Silk worms aren't going to magically create silk worm meat (or whatever you call it) from nothing - for ever 1 kg of silk worm that you grow to eat, you will have to bring along at least 1 kg of silkworm food. So why not just bring human-edible food instead of silk worm food?
Given that it costs more to raise an animal on vegetable feed than you gain by eating it, why not just eat the food that they're feeding the silkworms ?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
This should be great for their fledgling space program and will prove they're committed to a peaceful future. They have vast quantities of old Silkworms laying around ready to be made into food. Gives a whole new meaning to the term explosive diarrhea though.
"Make dinner, not war" is what I always say.
The ratio of people to cake is too big
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!
I guess Chris Moriarty's novel "Spin Control", where a good deal of the biomass for a long-term space mission was silkworms, was ahead of the curve.
Steve over at The Sneeze posted his experience eating silkworms. I can't say they look overly appetizing.
What you're not getting, is that they're concerned with finding a food source that can be replicated while en route to Mars. Say the Mars crew was 5 people strong. 3 years is 1095 days. For 5 people to eat 3 square meals a day, that's 5475 servings of food. Scratch that, not servings, but complete meals, which generally represent at least a couple servings of various food groups. The concern is that A.)You're packing a ton of extra weight that has to break Earth's gravity, and then adding in additional fuel to compensate, which then makes the craft even heavier. B.) That much food, even in compact forms like tuna cans and beef jerky, is still going to take a massive area just for storage. Again, extra weight added to craft for additional spacecraft real estate. C.)Survivability. Most of the foods you listed will not keep at room temperature for 3 years. Tuna, perhaps, but jerky, bagels, etc. Won't make it even close to that. You can freeze it, but this will also require extra gear, energy and materials to accomplish.
Now, if you were to introduce a renewable food source like the silk worm, most of those problems are reduced considerably. You leave orbit with only a seed population, and since their bodies, much like ours, are comprised mostly of water, it is not a straight equation of 1LB of worm food begets 1LB of worms. They eat leaves, which could theoretically also be grown using a minimum of resources, which only require light (free), water (recyclable) and soil (recyclable). Therefore you are netting a gain in food that is more than what you leave with from Earth.
I'm sure they will probably pack some regular food too, but likely more as an appeasement to keep the astronauts sane. It will be spaced out sparingly over a long ride, and is essentially a luxury. I view it a lot like the food situation in Firefly, where most of their diet is comprised from nondescript protein bars. If you didn't see the behind the scenes of them making those protein bars, I think you'd be looking at a very similar set of circumstances. Once the worms have been harvested, they can be processed any number of ways, including being refined and compacted into their most efficient form (bars). Then you add in a box of strawberries every now and then just to keep from going all bibbledy.
Raging in an online forum won't do anything for the world around you. To see change, you must take action.