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NASA Working on Mars Menu
DevotedSkeptic writes in with a story about the work going into feeding astronauts on a mission to Mars. "The menu must sustain a group of six to eight astronauts, keep them healthy and happy and also offer a broad array of food. That's no simple feat considering it will likely take six months to get to the Red Planet, astronauts will have to stay there 18 months and then it will take another six months to return to Earth. Imagine having to shop for a family's three-year supply of groceries all at once and having enough meals planned in advance for that length of time. 'Mars is different just because it's so far away,' said Maya Cooper, a senior research scientist with Lockheed Martin who is leading the efforts to build the menu. 'We don't have the option to send a vehicle every six months and send more food as we do for the International Space Station.'"
Easy...
'nuff said
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
No option to resupply? I figured that We would be sending 2-4 tons of supplies to restock every 2-3 months. I mean, it's one thing to hop in the Soyuz capsule and retrograde burn back home, but at the rate things break on the ISS, I can't imagine less than two restocking missions being sent to the mars mission en route, with another set of supplies being sent down every 3 months while they're on the planet. Things break, people get sick, shit happens.
moox. for a new generation.
Might it be time to dig out the poop steak hoax and turn it into the real thing?
Human flesh, human eye ball, and human bone, with a just a sprinkle of martian dust.
On the way out, normal rations but watch very closely who is underperforming in their duties.
On the way back, Soylent Green for dinner.
Just an idea...
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Is there any reason a whole lot of canned/freeze-dried food couldn't be sent to Mars in advance? Now that we can target Mars with pretty much pin-point accuracy (within a few dozen KM) there's no reason a bunch of supply missions couldn't be sent before the fleshbots arrive.
We herald in the gastronauts.
I'll be back after a short break. Don't go changin'.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
People in the military say that MRE is three lies in one acronym.
.
You want calorie dense nutrient dense foods. I can fit in a single backpack all the food needed by one person for 30 days. Problem is they will go insane eating the same ration day in and day out.
The other aspect is also choosing foods that have a higher conversion factor so the waste elimination is compact and less frequent. You cant go high protein as you have a limited supply of water and you have to have water to process protein. So it 's a balance that is hard to figure out.
The article summary is very wrong, " Imagine having to shop for a family's three-year supply of groceries all at once and having enough meals planned in advance for that length of time." is really easy. Imagine having to shop for a family's three-year supply of groceries all at once and having enough meals planned in advance for that length of time that dont use too much water from your finite limited supply of water and reduces the excrement output of the entire family to be as small as possible.
THAT is what NASA is trying to do, it's massively harder than planning a 3 year grocery list.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Airline Catering add extra salt and spices to meals to avoid people complaining about them being too bland. When flying in high altitudes, apparently sense of taste and smell is impaired.
Could be similar issue in 0-grav and certainly is if cabine-pressure is kept low.
"the lack of gravity means smell - and taste - is impaired. So the food is bland."
Really.
How come nobody else reading Slashdot noticed this ludicrous statement? How can a lack of gravity "impair" smell? Do they mean the SENSE of smell or taste? What are they talking about?
This is correct. Your sense of taste and smell is diminished in zero G. You start slopping on the hot sauce pretty heavily.
Also you start to notice a sweet, metallic smell everywhere you go.
They haven't quite figured out why this happens yet, but since we are essentially big bags of water, and in zero G our internal fluid pressure changes, that may upset the way fluids move through our mucosa.
Dude...
Every single astronaut is close to your definition. They sit on top of some megatons capable explosive fuel and light that candle, hoping to get back in home without being burned on the re-entrance.
Why?
Because they think that there's things more important than their lives.
Never underestimate the human being. Not all of us are selfish bastards.
Lisias@Earth.SolarSystem.OrionArm.MilkyWay.Local.Virgo.Universe.org
Imagine having to shop for a family's three-year supply of groceries all at once and having enough meals planned in advance for that length of time.
Then forget that idea, because it's nothing like that.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Top Ramen Dumbass... every college student knows that
You managed to land a car on mars ffs.
Good point, landing a hot dog stand can't be that much harder.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Did you just crawl from under a rock? I can see I'm going to have to spell this out for you, but do you really think that male astronauts (or sailors, or oil rig workers) manage to go for extended periods without getting intimate with one of their hands? Just because the subject isn't exactly widely discussed outside the inhabitants of single-male communities, doesn't mean it doesn't happen. If that little disposal problem can be coped with, periods should be the least of anyone's worries.
Sigh. Yes, you have to spell it out for me, because I don't see how men need pads or tampons, neither of which can be processed through human waste recycling like feces, urine and semen.
Until a propulsion method is invented that can get humans to mars and back in a few weeks the whole premise is ridiculous. No SANE person is going to volunteer to spend a year in a capsule with 18 months on a dust ball with an unbreathable atmosphere and lethal UV radiation. Sure, you'll find some volunteers but I guaranteed they'll all be mentally unbalanced and would probably chicken out at the last moment anyway. And don't anyone compare it with old sailing ship voyages - its nothing like that. On a ship you have gravity, fresh air, you can go outside, stop off at places and even swim. The nearest analogy would be to the conditions the poor slaves were kept in on atlantic voyages down in the hold.
Well, perhaps count me as insane, as I would volunteer for such a trip to Mars in a heartbeat.
Well, if I had to spend a year long voyage to Mars trapped in a capsule the size of a phone booth I would be a little bit more upset and concerned, and there is no way I would travel to Mars in the Orion capsule alone and in free fall the whole way, but there are other ways to make the trip a little more reasonable.
As for comparing a trip to Mars with a voyage from London to San Francisco in the 19th Century or even just across the North Atlantic in the 17th Century, I think the analogy is pretty appropriate. No, you didn't just jump into the water whenever you felt like it (assuming that you could even swim... that was not even a common skill for most people of that era). Regardless, I think you are making too many excuses for why it won't work.
If you want to see at least one well thought out proposal in terms of how somebody has suggested a trip to Mars can happen, here is a video for you to look at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cx6cioPdPZQ
For myself, I would prefer to travel to Mars in a NAUTILUS-X spacecraft. There are propulsion methods for getting to Mars that are effective in cutting that trip down to just a few weeks like you are suggesting, but most of them involve nuclear energy as an energy source of some kind. There are so many anti-nuclear nuts that complain each time NASA sends up a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (usually called simply an RTG) that assembling a full fledged nuclear reactor in space would be seen as public enemy #1 and would kill any attempt to even try. These same idiots would likely complain even if it was a nuclear fusion reactor instead, as that dreaded "nuclear" word would be used still. The trick for travel to Mars quickly is to simply have a high density energy source. Mars is just on the edge of what you can do with chemical energy in terms of using things like liquid oxygen and something else like hydrogen or methane. That is the reason why it takes so long to travel to Mars.
Submarine duty is a better comparison, two to three months without surfacing is typical.
It's a Bugblatter of Trall cookbook, partly plagairized from How to Serve Pork.
Free Martian Whores!
Not be Mr negativity, but this is some of the reason why many say that NASA is becoming a failed experiment not worthy of federal funding. I don't mean to discount what they do and what they have done. But sometimes, they spend far more effort engineering than actually producing which is what makes it really hard to secure public buy-in over time.
You can re-supply a mission to the planet, you can accomplish many things but NASA's model of 6 years development for a 20 year mission isn't closing the gap fast enough to keep public interested in what they are doing. Really, do you *need* to plan a 3 year mission, no, your intentionally adding a layer of complexity to try and make everything into one bubble. NASA's hayday of accomplishment where they had massive amount of public interest was because everyday people saw the things that they were doing. They took chances (measured) and didn't engineer everything to death. They simply need to get out of their own way long enough for people to actually feel inspired by them.
Probably the a similar thing to what happens on airplanes: http://newsfeed.time.com/2010/10/14/revealed-why-airline-food-tastes-so-bland/
Is 1563649 a prime number?
people have stayed in space for a year. plenty of those "flyboys" you admire have volunteered to do more. And like those in the "tin can" known as the ISS, they wouldn't be alone. Sane people do important dangerous work
2000 tons of fuel+oxidizer is not "some megatons". In fact it is closer to two kilotons. They're not "lighting that candle", they're riding the most expensive machine ever created, with much of the cost invested to improve its reliability.
It's still a lot less reliable, but these guys are not throwing their lives away as you imply.
TFA:
Can anyone suggest to me why powdered milk, and freeze-dried or liquid nitrogen frozen meat would not last for the three year voyage? One vendor freeeze-dired meat entrees claims they last 7 years: http://www.mtnhse.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=M&Category_Code=MHDL
Is there some constraint that they are not telling us about?
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Part of designing a launch vehicle and a habitat plan will need to include sufficient storage space for food supplies. In order to know how much space your food supplies need, you will need to know what food will be included, thus the need to plan the menu.
Or are you suggesting that you don't need to know how much mass and volume your foodstuffs take when designing a launch/transport vehicle, and habitat?
And you don't think hiring people to design and manufacture the equipment for such a journey would create jobs?