Ever wanted to spend a couple months in a tiny and remote geodesic dome with a bunch of strangers and a few supplies to try and figure out how people would eat on Mars? Yeah, me neither. Thankfully are few hearty souls are willing to endure:
The crew of six terranauts, selected from a pool of seven hundred applicants, alternate between two days of prepackaged meals and two days of dome home cooking; chef duties are executed in pairs. The pantry has been stocked with ingredients like flax seeds, sourdough starter, anchovies, egg-white crystals, dried hijiki seaweed, and canned Spam—a nod to local cuisine, as well as Pacific U.S. military history. While the crew completed cooking classes at Cornell prior to entering the habitat, no member has professional culinary experience. They are relying on a cookbook and a mission-support group, which is available for twelve hours a day to hunt down online recipes and answer operational questions. (There is, however, a twenty-minute time delay between the dome and the support group, to simulate the communication gap with Mars.)
As always, water is the real problem, which is one reason for the experiment.
(Via Charlie Martin’s Twitter feed, which is always full of linky goodness.)
Join the conversation as a VIP Member