NASA Working on Mars Menu

DevotedSkeptic writes in with a story about the work going into feeding astronauts on a mission to Mars. "The menu must sustain a group of six to eight astronauts, keep them healthy and happy and also offer a broad array of food. That's no simple feat considering it will likely take six months to get to the Red Planet, astronauts will have to stay there 18 months and then it will take another six months to return to Earth. Imagine having to shop for a family's three-year supply of groceries all at once and having enough meals planned in advance for that length of time. 'Mars is different just because it's so far away,' said Maya Cooper, a senior research scientist with Lockheed Martin who is leading the efforts to build the menu. 'We don't have the option to send a vehicle every six months and send more food as we do for the International Space Station.'"

No option to resupply?

[Hadlock]

We don't have the option to send a vehicle every six months and send more food as we do for the International Space Station.'"

No option to resupply? I figured that We would be sending 2-4 tons of supplies to restock every 2-3 months. I mean, it's one thing to hop in the Soyuz capsule and retrograde burn back home, but at the rate things break on the ISS, I can't imagine less than two restocking missions being sent to the mars mission en route, with another set of supplies being sent down every 3 months while they're on the planet. Things break, people get sick, shit happens.

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Re:No option to resupply?

[kav2k]

Problem is, the opportunity for a reasonable flight path to Mars is not always there. Windows can be small and far apart.

Send food in advance maybe?

[opusman]

Is there any reason a whole lot of canned/freeze-dried food couldn't be sent to Mars in advance? Now that we can target Mars with pretty much pin-point accuracy (within a few dozen KM) there's no reason a bunch of supply missions couldn't be sent before the fleshbots arrive.

Re:No option to resupply?

[Zocalo]

And if the resupply ship has an incident that somehow prevents its contents from being usable if/when it arrives at the rendezvous, the burn to insert it into Mars orbit fails perhaps, what's the fallback plan going to be? The parameters of a manned Mars mission with current technology pretty much dictate that we'd need to construct and outfit a suitably sized vessel in LEO, meaning bringing such things as landing modules, Mars rovers, supplies etc., up to the craft in multiple launches during construction. That's a lot of mass to LEO, just for the mechanical side of things, so fitting a couple of tons worth of food and other supplies probably isn't going to be a major problem by comparison.

I'm guessing that NASA has done the math and figured out that it's easier, and possibly cheaper, to send all the food up to LEO and then transfer it to Mars in one go along with the astronauts than it is to engage in multiple interplanetary transfers, each with an orbital rendezvous and risk of failure.

Meal, Ready to Eat

[mangu]

People in the military say that MRE is three lies in one acronym.

.

Not hard to do.

[Lumpy]

You want calorie dense nutrient dense foods. I can fit in a single backpack all the food needed by one person for 30 days. Problem is they will go insane eating the same ration day in and day out.

The other aspect is also choosing foods that have a higher conversion factor so the waste elimination is compact and less frequent. You cant go high protein as you have a limited supply of water and you have to have water to process protein. So it 's a balance that is hard to figure out.

The article summary is very wrong, " Imagine having to shop for a family's three-year supply of groceries all at once and having enough meals planned in advance for that length of time." is really easy. Imagine having to shop for a family's three-year supply of groceries all at once and having enough meals planned in advance for that length of time that dont use too much water from your finite limited supply of water and reduces the excrement output of the entire family to be as small as possible.

THAT is what NASA is trying to do, it's massively harder than planning a 3 year grocery list.

Re:Not hard to do.

[TheMathemagician]

This story typifies what's wrong with NASA these days. No astronauts are going to Mars for the forseeable future. And even if a mission were approved it would take a decade's planning and minor tasks like this could be knocked off in a few months. They're reduced to trumpeting these irrelevancies in the absence of any real achievements.

Re:It won't happen anyway

[Lisias]

Dude...

Every single astronaut is close to your definition. They sit on top of some megatons capable explosive fuel and light that candle, hoping to get back in home without being burned on the re-entrance.

Why?

Because they think that there's things more important than their lives.

Never underestimate the human being. Not all of us are selfish bastards.

Re:It won't happen anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

Submarine duty is a better comparison, two to three months without surfacing is typical.