Future Astronauts May Survive On Eating Silkworms 384
sciencehabit writes "Science reports that silkworms may be an ideal food source for future space missions. They breed quickly, require little space and water, and generate smaller amounts of excrement than poultry or fish. They also contain twice as many essential amino acids as pork does and four times as much as eggs and milk. Even the insect's inedible silk, which makes up 50% of the weight of the dry cocoon, could provide nutrients: The material can be rendered edible through chemical processing and can be mixed with fruit juice, sugar, and food coloring to produce jam."
Food for thought (Score:5, Insightful)
Now we just have to solve this space radiation issue and how to shield astronauts from it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
We also have to deal with the inevitable PETA protests.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I seem to recall some sci-fi book I read where they'd solved the problem by surrounding the astronauts with water (ie, the ship's water supply was basically in the hull). I can't recall any of the details, but that's always stuck in my mind as a vaguely good idea, assuming it works, as you need heaps of water anyway and if you can double it as a radiation shield then so much the better!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
From what I know they're merely aware of the problem and haven't fully solved it, unless I'm really mistaken there's no way for current spacesuits to completely shield astronauts from radiation outside the earth's magnetic field.
Re:Food for thought (Score:5, Funny)
Hey if that works, they've got the solution to space travel all wrapped up!
Re:Food for thought (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Food for thought (Score:5, Interesting)
This makes sense since most of the blood in your body flows to your head when you're in Zero-G.
Sorry to burst all of your geeky dreams.
Re:Food for thought (Score:5, Funny)
Male Astronauts have apparently tried quite a bit
Unless you have a citation for this I'm going to assume that you are confusing the NASA channel with old Cinemax reruns of Emmanuelle in Space ;)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm gonna have to request a source for that. I've heard no such thing, all I've heard speculation that the actual physical mechanics of it, what with two weightless bodies and all, would be pretty daunting.
Plus, I bet it's more the fact that astronauts are in extremely cramped conditions in a decidedly non-sexual situation.
"It's the z-gravity baby, I swear!"
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Who needs an erection to have sex?
You must think that a tongue is for talkin.
Re:Food for thought (Score:5, Funny)
From what I understand, it's almost impossible for people to have sex in Zero-G. Male Astronauts have apparently tried quite a bit, even with the help of drugs, but they -can't- get an erection. This makes sense since most of the blood in your body flows to your head when you're in Zero-G.
So NASA just needs to screen astronaut applicants for the ability to mastrubate while standing on their head...
Re:Food for thought (Score:5, Funny)
Female astronauts have no problem, they have blood in their head during normal sex too.
Re:Food for thought (Score:5, Funny)
especially pushers and shovers.
The problems of docking
and then interlocking
are greatly increased when one hovers.
Source: Omni Magazine, limerick contest
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I will still not give any DVDA shots :/
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Solution to NASA's funding problems.
Re:Food for thought (Score:5, Insightful)
In space, yes. Outside the earth's magnetosphere, no. Even out on the moon, the magnetosphere still protects them from much of the nastiness (solar wind, cosmic rays, etc.), but if we're gonna go to Mars or wherever, we'll need to bring our own protection.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Will sunscreen do? What do I need, SPF 280,000?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"but if we're gonna go to Mars or wherever, we'll need to bring our own protection."
No we don't - according to a poster above, men can't even get an erection in space, much less impregnate anyone.
Re:Food for thought (Score:4, Funny)
but if we're gonna go to Mars or wherever, we'll need to bring our own protection.
Wait are you talking about the radiation or is this still the space sex thread?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The Apollo missions were short duration, and during Solar Minimum, but they were taking a chance. There was a risk (which was known at the time) that a major solar flare could kill the astronauts while they were in cis-lunar space.
Of course, this was not the only risk they faced...
Re: (Score:2)
Huh? Already worked out!? Astronauts have already been to space, I don't know if you've received the memo..
I haven't received any memo. Tell us how they have solved the radiation problem.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Food for thought (Score:5, Funny)
Wow, man. That's deep!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Living in the ocean wont save us from the earth being consumed by nuclear waste / aliens / zombies / etc
Also, the ocean is already inhabited.
Re:Food for thought (Score:4, Interesting)
The ocean is connected to the land as far as ecosystems go. A single asteroid can kill off both land and oceanic populations.
On the other hand if you had viable terrestrial and space populations then a single asteroid would have a much more difficult go at it.
And it isn't just asteroids that we have to worry about. It isn't a matter of if the surface of this planet will become uninhabitable to humans it is a more a matter of when.
Space Colonization is a matter of survival of the species and other species as well. Also we may just learn something along the way.
Re:Food for thought (Score:4, Insightful)
Just in case you were unaware, Kangaroo is relatively commonly eaten in the great southern land of Oz. It's considered a generally "low quality" meat though, and is also used as pet food. Although, you can get kangaroo steaks and burgers intended for human consumption in most supermarkets or on the menus of some eateries, especially at tourist locations.
Koalas on the other hand are legally protected.
As a note, Australia is the only country in the world that eats both the animals displayed on its coat of arms (Kangaroo and Emu). I'm not sure the British could, even if they wanted, since they have a Lion and a Unicorn, and most Americans would probably be a little averse to the idea of Eagle for dinner.
I think the silkworms probably do make more sense than trying to get a bunch of roos on a space vessel (I'm loving the imagery of that though)
gross (Score:5, Funny)
can we make them taste like bacon?
Re: (Score:2)
Liu's team calculates that given a relatively normal diet with a three-to-one ratio of plant to animal protein, each astronaut would need to consume 170 silkworm pupae and cocoons a day to fulfill their animal protein needs.
interested in a bowl full of bugs?
Re:gross (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
The article reminds me of Gagh...
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Gagh [memory-alpha.org]
The Klingon bowl o' worms always sounded like a pretty interesting meal to me.
Re:gross (Score:5, Funny)
Re:gross (Score:5, Informative)
They taste kind of like a very musty bean, but they have the typical cooked larva mouthfeel to them, a slightly taught exterior that 'pops' when you bite into them, and a soft creamy interior.
I'm not just talking shit either. Silk worms are a very common street vendor food in Korea, and I tried some the last time I was there. I'd seen them for decades, but I'd chickened out when I saw them in my earlier years.
If I was in some sort of survival environment, like the harsh vacuum of space, I wouldn't mind eating silk worms, but on a regular basis, I'm not too fond of them.
Re:gross (Score:5, Interesting)
How are they served in Korea? Sounds like you ate them whole... cooked or raw? Can you get them fried? (yes I'm from the south). If they taste like beans can you grind them up into a hummus or bean dip? Refried worms, mmmm.
Re:gross (Score:4, Informative)
Re:gross (Score:5, Informative)
Re:gross (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:gross (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:gross (Score:5, Insightful)
People around the world eat some strange shit. Snails, dog, pork guts (chitterlings), carob-coated insects, fish eggs, and probably some nasty shit I've never heard of. Some of this stuff might be considered a delicacy tody, but I am sure it all started due to hunger.
Have you ever looked at a cow? What made some poor bastard decide to milk that huge, stinking thing? Yep. Hunger!
I watched a documentary a few years back that showed a guy driving a stick into the side of a cow. A stream of blood mixed with something else poured out of the animal and was collected and ...gagh... drunk.
Re:gross (Score:5, Funny)
Who was the guy who first looked at a chicken and thought "I'm gonna eat the first thing that comes out of that bird's butt."
Thank god the egg came out first.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It was a snake, well before avians existed.
Before that, it was fish.
Eggs are created to be a large amount of nourishment in an enclosed package. The idea of eating them is probably as old as the existence of eggs.
gross is relative, eh ;-) (Score:3, Insightful)
Gross is indeed relative. Somewhere in the world somebody is going to be freaked out what you consider lovely and normal and natural.
A girl I knew quite put me off eggs for a while after describing them as "chickens' periods" and somebody else said they found cheese a bit hard to eat when you consider it as congealed, old, mouldy animal milk. As for what goes into sausages and burgers and meat paste?
As for meat, a friend of mine worked in a factory and told me about the machines they used and how they reall
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Sea urchin can be some great movie-watching food.
Knew a guy who liked to go fishing on the weekends. He'd bring back buckets of urchins, which I'd trade him for scotch. Worked out to about $7 USD (in the late 90's) for a gallon bucket full of the spiney little yum-yums. Did I mention that buying alcohol on an overseas base is cheap, since there's no state taxes?
Anyway, throw a movie in. Remove urchin from bucket. Cut urchin in half with kitchen shears while enjoying the spines moving about in your hand
Re:gross (Score:5, Interesting)
Cut urchin in half with kitchen shears while enjoying the spines moving about in your hand. Add a dash of soy sauce. Eat with spoon. Repeat.
I think you just made PETA's hit list for that comment.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sea urchins are not cute.
Therefore, no outcry.
Re:gross (Score:5, Funny)
Last time I was there I had some great meat balls. They really were the dog's bollocks.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:silkworms in a can (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:gross (Score:5, Informative)
can we make them taste like bacon?
Yes... just wrap them in bacon...
Re:gross (Score:4, Funny)
PIGS!
IN!
SPAAAaaaAAAaaaAAAaaaACE!
If they taste like they smell...... (Score:5, Funny)
so what do they taste like?? can we make them taste like bacon?
Last year I was in Korea where the streets are lined with vendors frying up silkworm pupae on the street as an, *ahem*, delicacy. The smell wafting down the road can only be described as a cross between death and pus. I would eat my fellow astronauts over silkworms.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, here is the recipe:
- Take fresh (or not so fresh) worms
- Garnish with whatever you like (like eggs)
- before eating, replace worms with bacon
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Cutlery! (Score:4, Informative)
If you can find a way to properly polymerise their silk, you could even make plastic knives and forks (or better, a spork) out of their silk to eat them with.
Breed larger silkworks and you could even use them to make the plates to eat them from! BONUS!
Re:Cutlery! (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah the Spork. With spokes to short to grab anything, however their unique shape prevents it from pickup liquid well either.
Spnife (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
If you can find a way to properly polymerise their silk
With that and some way of growing a plant that can use meteorites as nutrients and that can feed silkworms:
- Astronaut grows plants on ship.
- Astronaut mines meteorite for plant nutrients.
- Silkworm eats plants
- Astronauts eats silkworm.
- Astronaut uses polymerised silk to build Death Star.
The death of a myth (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The death of a myth (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't help that the previous generation had Apollo 11 and that "one small step" thing as a huge success. Then they had Apollo 13 and "Houston we've had a problem" that while missing the moon turned into a huge survival story success. My generation has had the Challenger and Columbia *kaboom* everyone dead stories. Now...building the Mir space station was a big story when I was a little kid. I remember our science teacher had us save our little milk carton things from lunch until we could build a huge one to hang up. Of course that one ended in a publicity stunt with Taco Bell promising free tacos if Mir hit some giant floating target in the ocean.
The previous generation got all the really cool and amazing space stories. My generation has gotten a few monumental failures, some publicity stunts, and space robots (which are pretty cool, but not a whole lot of that man to the moon excitement stuff).
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I dunno. I guess it depends how old you are.
I remember missing a week of school with the chicken pox the first time the Columbia flew, and how exciting it was.
I also remember my father surprising me with a trip down to Florida to watch the space shuttle take off.
We drove back and forth to the cape every morning before sunrise to get our pass and get bussed from the main gate out to the viewing peninsula.
Ended up being the Cha
Hey (Score:5, Funny)
"Oh, I don't know, Frank, how about... MORE FU(#1NG WORMS!?"
"Just calm down and pass the worm jam."
Unintentional entomophagy (Score:3, Interesting)
Good one.
Just wanna point out that we had always been eating insect parts [wikipedia.org] in jams, canned fruits, and other products, without being aware.
That said ... EEEEWWWW!! Over my dead body!
oblig (Score:5, Funny)
Wow, great timing! (Score:4, Interesting)
Now Hershey's can spin this nasty incident [consumerist.com] as test marketing of their new Space Brownies!
~Philly
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Why silkworms when there is ... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE
Sexy Lingerie! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
And if you get really bored in your new space habitat, you can make sexy underwear to keep your colony's population rising. :)
It doesn't matter how much silk underwear you use, you still won't reproduce with a silkworm.
Asians eat these already (Score:4, Informative)
Seen 'em all over the place in Korea from street carts. They always have this particular insect trifecta: Silk Worms, Crickets, and freshwater Snails:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beondegi [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Asiatronouts.
Tang (Score:2)
Wrong (Score:3, Funny)
Real astronauts eat'tang.
Food Coloring? (Score:4, Insightful)
Do we really need to waste precious cargo space and weight to bring up food coloring? I suppose astronauts might want green or purple catchup too.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Do we really need to waste precious cargo space and weight to bring up food coloring? I suppose astronauts might want green or purple catchup too.
All the precious cargo space in the world is pretty pointless if your crew gets pissed off and starts smashing things because they have spent the last 6 months in radioactive isolation while eathing nothing but mushed bugs. Even the most adamant basement dweller of Slashdot would go nuts if subjected to the monotony that would be interplanetary space-travel.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Want to see someone trying it? (Score:4, Interesting)
Benchilada eats silkworm pupae [youtube.com] live on video, So You Don't Have To [youtube.com]. (not mentioned in the video is the fact that his friend, helping him, started throwing up convulsively soon after they finished filming the episode.)
Must be in the NASA manual... (Score:5, Funny)
Astronaut 2,"Paragraph 47, subsection 19, cause 9a. You can find it in the index under S.U.A.E.I."
Astronaut 1,"S.U.A.E.I.?"
Astronaut 2,"Shut up and eat it."
Apologies to Babylon 5.
The mass still has to come from somewhere (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The mass still has to come from somewhere (Score:5, Informative)
1) The article states that Silkworms seem to be the most compact form of Human-edible food. 1kg of Silkworm Meat will give you far more nutrients and proteins than 1kg of Chicken meat.
2) For a long-term space mission, (we're talking at -least- decades from now) you would need a renewable food source that ultimately converts solar energy into consumable chemical energy, since Humans can't eat sunlight. So futuristic Arcology-like spaceships might have greenhouses to harness solar energy, and astronauts could eat grown food. However, even Vegans need vitamin supplements and the article states that for protein and nutrient purposes, Silkworms make a great compact, efficient, renewable food source.
Re:The mass still has to come from somewhere (Score:4, Insightful)
Citation needed. An unbalanced diet can require supplements, but a vegan diet can be balanced, at least according to the NIH, although it's harder than a non-vegan diet.
Citation: In space, there is a bit less biodiversity than on Earth. It wouldn't be a stretch to assume that it might be a bit difficult for astronauts to maintain a balanced diet if vegans here on Earth are having trouble doing so.
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for ever 1 kg of silk worm that you grow to eat, you will have to bring along at least 1 kg of silkworm food
I think the silkworms get "reprocessed" into silkworm food.
Re: (Score:2)
Meat goes bad.
Vegetables rehydrate better, also they are easier to grow, using sun energy.
Beans in space for protein just seems like a bad idea to me. Also I think it takes the correct type of person to be a full vegetarian, I tried once it was pure torture. For others it was quite easy, and for others somewhere in the middle, kinda like a standard deviation curve you know. I think most people need some meat for their body to function properly, granted Americans eat to much meat, but we need some for a heal
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
More like 10kg of food. (Figure I just plucked out of the air)
Not all the food will be converted to biomass. Much will be wasted on metabolic processes.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:The mass still has to come from somewhere (Score:4, Interesting)
So why not just bring human-edible food instead of silk worm food?
"Human-edible food" is like this simple loop that most people here should understand:
---> for (int x=100; x--; x>0)
After the function ends, the astronaunts die. I think I've read that astronauts "consume" 10kg of materials (air,water,food) per day so that it would cost 300kg to support somebody for a month if nothing ever got recycled. What space colonists need is a simple food-chain like this:
----> while (1) { plants(Sun, Fertiziler); silkworm(Plants); humans(Silkworm); }
In this way, you can recycle the processed waste from the silkworm and the humans (i.e. the "Fertilizer") and combine that with available Sunlight to generate a continuous cycle of food. And when "not dying" is the goal, it really won't matter how it tastes.
or go vegetarian? (Score:4, Insightful)
Given that it costs more to raise an animal on vegetable feed than you gain by eating it, why not just eat the food that they're feeding the silkworms ?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, insect protein is about as close to eating vegetarian, environmentally, as you can get without being a vegetarian.
Of course, you can survive on a vegetarian diet, but it's not always the easiest or lowest impact way of eating. For example, you can buy a goat for a third world family [mercycorps.org] from a non-profit development agency. They graze on things humans (and indeed most animals) can't eat, but they produce milk, wool and eventually meat at very little cost. I've bought some of these. For $175, y
Weaving (Score:2)
China is all set for their space program then! (Score:4, Funny)
This should be great for their fledgling space program and will prove they're committed to a peaceful future. They have vast quantities of old Silkworms [wikipedia.org] laying around ready to be made into food. Gives a whole new meaning to the term explosive diarrhea though.
"Make dinner, not war" is what I always say.
From TFA: (Score:2, Funny)
I guess I took it for granted that 170 silkworms would be easier to raise than 170 chickens.
The song (Score:3, Funny)
Everybody hates me
Going into space to eat worms!
Wow (Score:2)
Damn (Score:2)
Scratch astronaut off my list of things I want to be when I grow up. That leaves only cowboy or truck driver.
A happy astronaut is a well feed one (Score:2)
Bah Beardie food! (Score:3, Interesting)
Klingon food anyone? (Score:2)
Potato Chips on a Sub (Score:3, Interesting)
A Navy friend of mine worked on a Sub for many years. He always thought it was ironic that for a mission that required stealth they always seemed to have some of the loudest food you could find. Even MREs are edible, normal food.
Nothing in the exploration of space requires such nonsense self-depravation and oddities that keep getting leaked. I swear this is just a poly for more money.
Flour Torillas and refried beans is a remarkable compact food with spreadable cheese (think like butter) is easy to make. Even in zero G. Microwave it and you are good to go. The ideal of using silk worms is laughable when canned pastes and flat breads store very densely.
Here is a great "at home" experiment. Make a PBJ upside down. Doable with jelly in a squeeze bottle.
I mean seriously this is the most idiotic thing I have heard.
Can of refried beans is a more dense food source.
Suppliments can handle any short comings in the food supply.
How about:
Peanutbutter
Refried Beans
Tuna
beef jerky
whole grain frozen bagels
squeezy cheese
triscuits
Pringles
etc...
All of those can be packed\frozen\thawed with little trouble in dense formats.
Hell I know body builders that live on nothing but hard boiled eggs, whole grain bagels with peanut butter, diced chicken, milk, and tuna fish. 7 days a week. Years on end (excluding unusual meals on dates, holidays, etc.)
Chicken meat can be processed much like Spam and con be stored in a very compact space. Taking a cue from Tuna packaging you can use lightweight, vaccum sealed mylar bags to store the food. I have not tried freezing a hard boiled egg and thawing one to eat but bagels and even peanut butter seem to survive the freezer ok.
The key is density and as usual all things can be measured against SPAM for food density... :)
Re:Potato Chips on a Sub (Score:4, Insightful)
What you're not getting, is that they're concerned with finding a food source that can be replicated while en route to Mars. Say the Mars crew was 5 people strong. 3 years is 1095 days. For 5 people to eat 3 square meals a day, that's 5475 servings of food. Scratch that, not servings, but complete meals, which generally represent at least a couple servings of various food groups. The concern is that A.)You're packing a ton of extra weight that has to break Earth's gravity, and then adding in additional fuel to compensate, which then makes the craft even heavier. B.) That much food, even in compact forms like tuna cans and beef jerky, is still going to take a massive area just for storage. Again, extra weight added to craft for additional spacecraft real estate. C.)Survivability. Most of the foods you listed will not keep at room temperature for 3 years. Tuna, perhaps, but jerky, bagels, etc. Won't make it even close to that. You can freeze it, but this will also require extra gear, energy and materials to accomplish.
Now, if you were to introduce a renewable food source like the silk worm, most of those problems are reduced considerably. You leave orbit with only a seed population, and since their bodies, much like ours, are comprised mostly of water, it is not a straight equation of 1LB of worm food begets 1LB of worms. They eat leaves, which could theoretically also be grown using a minimum of resources, which only require light (free), water (recyclable) and soil (recyclable). Therefore you are netting a gain in food that is more than what you leave with from Earth.
I'm sure they will probably pack some regular food too, but likely more as an appeasement to keep the astronauts sane. It will be spaced out sparingly over a long ride, and is essentially a luxury. I view it a lot like the food situation in Firefly, where most of their diet is comprised from nondescript protein bars. If you didn't see the behind the scenes of them making those protein bars, I think you'd be looking at a very similar set of circumstances. Once the worms have been harvested, they can be processed any number of ways, including being refined and compacted into their most efficient form (bars). Then you add in a box of strawberries every now and then just to keep from going all bibbledy.
Spin Control by Chris Moriarty (Score:5, Informative)
I guess Chris Moriarty's novel "Spin Control", where a good deal of the biomass for a long-term space mission was silkworms, was ahead of the curve.
Re: (Score:2)
ANYONE can raise them in a clean, sterile environment for very little in the way of captial
I dunno. To me, "clean, sterile environment" means "no bugs."