How lessons learned from space exploration could feed the world

Sustainable food systems developed for deep space could help mitigate the food crisis, says Angelo Vermeulen

By Angelo Vermeulen

IN 2013, I lived in Hawai’i on the side of the Mauna Loa volcano, locked in a habitat with five other engineers and scientists to act out life on Mars for 120 days. I was crew commander of HI- SEAS I, the first NASA-funded Hawai’i Space Exploration Analog and Simulation mission.

Our main scientific work was a food study, investigating whether cooking with shelf-stable ingredients, such as freeze-dried meat and dehydrated vegetables, could combat a phenomenon called menu fatigue – which is a loss of appetite caused by repeated consumption of pre-prepared meals. Ours went down a treat.

The environment of …