Providing food for astronauts who sprint across space to distant planets in long-term travel is a major problem identified by the US space agency. So, researchers at Clemson University in South Carolina had been urged to recycle human faeces into synthetic food in a project named as “Synthetic Biology for Recycling Human Waste into Food, Nutraceuticals, and Materials: Closing the Loop for Long-Term Space Travel”.
NASA has allocated grants to eight universities around the US for innovative, early stage technologies that will address high-priority needs of America’s space program such as converting faeces to food.
If successful the astronauts will produce their own food on site at distant destinations using synthetic, biology-based approaches. It had become an important issue as the Space Shuttle program ended in 2011 and recent delays and explosions threatening the food supply chain. Back in May, astronauts on board the ISS grew their own red romaine lettuce, and their first taste test proved the lettuce was edible and delicious. The ISS has its own coffee-maker. Science, the researchers believe strongly, will find a way to make our poop hygienic and delicious.
Source: ScienceAlert
