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- There's no refrigerator on

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the International Space Station.

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The food all has to be shelf
stable, at room temperature.

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And the reason there's no refrigeration

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is because there's limited resources

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on the International Space Station.

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And this is also going to be
true on a mission to Mars.

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Keeping foods stable for five years

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is a difficult challenge because,

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you have to stabilize the nutrition,

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and you have to stabilize the quality

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of the food, so how will it taste.

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So if you've ever had a food that's been

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in your pantry for a
certain amount of time,

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and it's past best if used by,

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but it's something like a granola bar

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and you still try it,

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or you have some crackers in there,

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and you try them and you're like,

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oh, these aren't very good.

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Chances are that food's
still not five years old.

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So when we go to Mars, the food actually

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might get sent ahead of the crew.

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On the International Space Station

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they get resupply
missions every few months.

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On a Mars mission they probably

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won't have any resupply.

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The astronauts are really excited

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when fresh fruit comes
up on resupply missions

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because they don't get it very often,

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only when a resupply mission docks.

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- NASA cares a great deal
about food for the astronauts.

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They need to consume enough calories,

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enough nutrients to stay
healthy for the whole mission.

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And so a mission to Mars is
particularly challenging.

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It could be 30 months, six months there,

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18 months stay, six months back.

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And the food system might be deployed

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in advance of the astronaut.

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We may need food that
will last five years,

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and be delicious in the fifth year.

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- Flavor includes taste which is

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things like salty, and bitter,

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and sour, and sweets, and umami

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which is actually savory.

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And it's also a lot of what you get

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when you're smelling the food.

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So most of flavor is aroma.

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When you're looking at taste changes

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there's a lot of things that are going on

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in orbit that could be contributing

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to a sensation of a taste change

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so potentially it could be
the fluid shift in the body

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so you don't taste things as well

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because you have a sensation
that you ave a cold.

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The aromas don't dissipate the same,

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they don't rise like they do
here on Earth without gravity.

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So they dissipate instead of rising.

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And so they're not getting that aroma

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which is most of flavor.

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The astronauts have about 200

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different food options and that

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includes their beverages.

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It's cooked and prepared here

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on Earth where we remove the water.

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When they add it back, it's real food.

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This actually will taste
just like you would expect

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a pasta with shrimp product to taste

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when you add water back.

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The reason we remove the water

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is partially for mass saving.

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So when you send this up into orbit

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it weighs a lot less.

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And it costs a lot to
launch a kilogram into space

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so they recycle a lot of their water

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on the International Space Station

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so they can add the water back.

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And we expect that that will continue

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as they go on Mars missions,

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that they'd still be recycling
a lot of their water.

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We know from studies that only

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about seven of 65 of these that are

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currently in our food system,

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would still taste good after five years.

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So this is like canned food

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that you'd buy in the grocery store

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except in a flexible, lightweight pouch.

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So if we do send these to Mars

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we have to have a
counter measure in place,

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which could be a new
technology to produce them.

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So we're still looking
into different technologies

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and how much extra shelf life we can get.

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Can we get to five years by
using those technologies,