Europe’s mini food lab launches into space to grow steaks, potatoes from single cells
Astronauts may soon enjoy lab-grown steaks and mashed potatoes, reducing reliance on costly food shipments.
To reduce the cost of feeding astronauts in space, the European Space Agency (ESA) just launched a lab into space in a significant first step in manufacturing food in space, a new frontier.
Feeding an astronaut can cost close to 27,000 US dollars a day. To tackle that hefty price tag and explore a new venture in space, the ESA wants to put a food production plant on the International Space Station (ISS) in two years.
The project’s primary motivation is cost-driven, but the initiative could clear a fundamental roadblock that’s inhibiting humans from becoming a multi-planetary species: space food.
Researchers at the Imperial College in London and Bedford-based company Frontier Space are at the forefront of an emerging science. Lab-grown chicken has already arrived on supermarket shelves in the US and Singapore. Proponents of growing food in a lab argue that its true value lies in its ability to provide a sustainable and eco-friendly food source.
A bioreactor can make any kind of food
Dr. Aqeel Shamsul, CEO and founder of Bedford-based Frontier Space, told the BBC that science can now produce food and drink from “pure energy.”
“It is no longer the stuff of science fiction.”
Using a bioreactor at Imperial College’s Bezos Centre for Sustainable Proteins, they genetically engineer food like fermenting beer, known as “precision fermentation.”