Canada’s push to the Moon as part of the Artemis program now includes a drive to create better options for space food. The result of the newly announced Deep Space Food Challenge – the first NASA/CSA Centennial Challenge, with other partners – is targeted to help astronauts and people living in challenging food environments on Earth, such as Canada’s north.
Canadian innovators may submit their design concept for a food production technology by July 30, 2021 using this website. Applying to the Deep Space Food Challenge will kick off a three-year journey to compete for $30,000 in grant funding and the opportunity to become a semi-finalist, through stages such as testing a prototype in a kitchen-level demonstration and building a full system demonstration. The grand prize winner, announced in spring 2024, will receive $380,000 in grant funding. Latter-stage participants may also receive “other non-monetary benefits”, according to the challenge website.
Landing people on the Moon and eventually going to Mars will require some form of food innovation, which is why Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and NASA are partnering for the first time on this kind of a challenge, said Matt Bamsey, a finalist for the 2017 CSA astronaut recruitment, space food researcher and current senior project manager at CSA who is helping to evaluate the entries.
“There are some health risks on long-duration missions,” Bamsey said, referring to challenges such as making sure the astronauts get enough nutrition. For example, International Space Station astronauts require periodic resupply missions through cargo ships to receive fresh fruit from Earth.
A few vegetables are grown on the space station for research purposes as part of NASA’s Veggie series of experiments and the Advanced Plant Habitat (APH). Among other goals, the vegetables seek to give astronauts an in-situ source of Vitamin C – a requirement for healthy body tissues. The plants are getting healthier as NASA and the crews get more experience, Bamsey said, but the amount produced is not yet enough to keep a six-person crew fed.
Moon and Mars missions cannot depend on resupplies – especially in the case of Mars, where the typical ideal windows for delivery from Earth happen about every two years. Moreover, plants can be used for oxygen and water regeneration on these worlds, although we’ll need to test them closer to Earth first. “For long-duration missions and a sustainable presence on the lunar surface, we do need to close up the food loop, and the air and water loop,” Bamsey said.
Growing plants in microgravity is challenging as you need to think of innovative solutions to contain soil, which otherwise would float everywhere. On other rocky worlds with gravity, the ideal would be to use the regolith in-situ so that you “don’t have to truck that with you” on a spacecraft, Bamsey said.
On the Moon’s surface, there is regolith available that could be used for growing plants. On Mars, Bamsey added that the famous fictional tale of an astronaut growing potatoes in “The Martian” – a 2015 Hollywood movie adapted from an earlier Andy Weir novel – is also possible for future missions. But these astronauts and their systems will need to filter out the Martian perchlorate first, as that would be poisonous to plants.
Bamsey encouraged potential Challenge participants to find safe solutions for astronauts that could also be deployed in food-scarcity environments where humans live on Earth.
“We are looking for innovative solutions that are feasible, to think out of the box,” he said. One aspect of this innovation would be maximizing the output of food with a minimum of inputs into the system, he added.
Canadian individuals or groups of individuals are welcome to participate as long as they can create a separate business corporation to accept Canadian government payments; as this process takes time, it’s advisable to start now to finish the paperwork before the deadline. Other eligible Canadian entrants may include Indigenous organizations and groups, post-secondary/academic institutions, not-for-profit organizations and businesses/for-profit organizations. (Americans interested in participating should consult the rules on the equivalent NASA website.)
CSA and its partners announced the challenge Jan. 12, just weeks after Canada and NASA announced a joint mission to send a Canadian astronaut around the moon in 2023, on the Artemis II mission. The ultimate goal of Artemis is to land astronauts on the Moon in 2024 and to create a sustainable human presence on the surface, as long as the technology development and NASA funding support the deadline. (Some in U.S. Congress support a 2028 deadline or later, although the incoming Biden administration has not yet made a choice as to the deadline.)
Canada’s lunar participation is largely due to committing to building the Canadarm3 robotic arm for NASA’s Gateway space station; the arm is under development by MDA for deployment later in the 2020s, if the schedule holds. On the commercial side, the other main branch of CSA’s lunar participation with NASA comes through the Lunar Exploration Acceleration Program (LEAP). LEAP is now developing commercial technologies for the Moon, with the plan of eventually flying some payloads to the surface, lunar orbit and eventually other destinations.