NASA comes to Ohio State for Deep Space Food Symposium

When considering preparing food for space travel, things like size and nutritional content must be taken into account. A less obvious but just as important concern: Does the food produce crumbs?

“You may not know this, but crumbs are dangerous in space, so we don’t bring things like crackers,” said Robyn Gatens, director of the International Space Station for NASA. “Crumbs might get in someone’s eye as they float around and that’s a hazard.”

Gatens was the keynote speaker at the Deep Space Food Symposium held at The Ohio State University last week. She was joined by a full day’s worth of speakers including Christian Lange from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), NASA colleague G. Michael Green and John Horack, the Neil Armstrong Chair in Aerospace Technology at Ohio State.

Ohio State President Walter “Ted” Carter Jr. opened the symposium, highlighting what became a theme for the day: collaboration toward a greater goal.

“This is a special gathering for a special topic, a special mission,” Carter said. “… There’s a lot of excitement here. This is where academia, industry, government all come together to solve some of the biggest challenges we think about [for] deep space exploration.”

In addition to panels, the day also featured the announcement of the American winner of the CSA and NASA’s Deep Space Food Challenge. The challenge invited teams around the country to submit proposals for “novel and game-changing food technologies or systems that require minimal inputs and maximize safe, nutritious and palatable food outputs for long-duration space missions, and which have potential to benefit people on Earth.”

Food, Gatens said, is a vital resource for astronauts. Not just for nutrition, though.

“If you think about the social and psychological role that food plays in your life – a gathering of friends and family for dinner, celebrating holidays and breaking bread, spending time together – there’s comfort in having your favorite food and beverages when you’re away from home,” she said. “And that’s no different for our astronauts in space on long-duration missions.”

Interstellar Lab, a Floridian team, won the top prize with its modular, bioregenerative system for producing fresh microgreens, vegetables, mushrooms and insects.

Green, chief of staff for the Space Technology Mission Directorate at NASA, highlighted the importance of challenges in finding solutions to complex problems, calling them “the best starting point” for students and professors. Academia has a large role to play, Green added.

“So many times it is important to partner with our friends in academia to look at a tough problem that maybe we don’t know how to solve,” he said.

Gatens agreed.

“The partnership here at Ohio State has been really important for this challenge.”

Audience members listened to the speakers with rapt attention. While attendees were mostly graduate students, faculty and contractors, two stood out: 12-year-old Molly Pease and her mother, Colette.

After seeing “Apollo 13” for the first time last year, Molly admitted to being “obsessed” with space. Her mother came across the symposium and noted that it was open to the public.

“We were just at the NASA booth and totally geeked out,” she said. “You just say, ‘NASA,’ and the cool factor exponentially increased. It felt like the chance of a lifetime for her to see the director of the International Space Station.”