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NASA Creating Meals for Mars Mission to Last Five Years

by Caleb Johnson on August 16, 2009 at 07:58 AM

Eating five-year-old food doesn't sound too appetizing to us. But to the astronauts that NASA will eventually send to Mars, it'll taste as good as any five-star restaurant's fare. Well, maybe not that good, but it will be the sole sustenance for that group of men and women during their grueling trip into outer space.

According to the Los Angeles Times, NASA will need to pack enough food to feed six people every day for three years. That's about 6,750 breakfasts, lunches, snacks, and dinners. The toughest part is making sure the food doesn't spoil. NASA engineers are searching for different preservation methods and menus for the trip, which would last years. Their plan will most likely involve sending food to Mars ahead of the astronauts.

Traditionally, astronauts would eat freeze-dried food, but its shelf life isn't long enough for this mission. That method works well on shorter trips because water (a byproduct of the space shuttle) is used to cook. But on Mars, water is a much rarer commodity. Engineers are studying a sterilization process that depends more on pressure than temperature, but as of now, there are no sure answers to the problem.

Since the food is typically packaged in heavy, foil containers, weight is a major concern, too. There's also the task of making the food healthy (and having it taste like something more than notebook paper). Let's hope those astronauts have strong stomachs. [From: Los Angeles Times]
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The 5 Greatest Planet-Exploring Robots
If its mission succeeds in 2012, NASA's latest Mars rover, the newly christened Curiosity will join an elite group of robots that have managed to touch down safely on an alien world. Click through to see Curiosity's five greatest forbearers.

The 5 Greatest Planet-Exploring Robots

    If its mission succeeds in 2012, NASA's latest Mars rover, the newly christened Curiosity will join an elite group of robots that have managed to touch down safely on an alien world. Click through to see Curiosity's five greatest forbearers.

    Luna 9
    Two and a half years before Neil Armstrong's giant leap, the Soviets' unmanned Luna 9 probe touched down on the surface of the Moon on February 3, 1966. For three days, it beamed back the first videos and panoramic photos from a heavenly body.

    Venera 7
    On August 17, 1970, the Soviet Venera 7 probe crash-landed on Venus and became the first spacecraft to survey our nearest planetary neighbor. What it found wasn't pretty: A hellish world with metal-melting temperatures of 475 degrees Fahrenheit and crushing atmospheric pressure 93 times greater than Earth's.

    Viking 1 and 2
    After three attempts by the USSR, NASA succeeded in landing the first robot on Mars when Viking 1 touched down on July 20, 1976. (Its sibling, Viking 2, landed on September 3.) Although designed for a 90-day mission, the landers spent over 6 years surveying the planet.

    NEAR Shoemaker
    On February 14 , 2000, Shoemaker locked into orbit around 433 Eros, an asteroid orbiting just past Mars. Though Shoemaker wasn't designed to land on Eros, NASA engineers successfully plunked it down on the rock after its one-year mission.

    Huygens Saturn Probe
    A joint American-European mission touched-down a probe called Huygens on the surface of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, on January 14, 2005. Nearly half the size of Earth, Titan is the only moon in the solar system with an atmosphere -- which allowed Huygens to make a leisurely two-and-a-half-hour parachute descent while measuring the atmosphere and snapping photos of the terrain. It continued to send back data for an hour and ten minutes after it landed.

Tags: astronaut, engineering, food, food technology, FoodTechnology, mars, nasa, space, top

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