Food processing on a space station: feasibility and opportunities

An alternative strategy for processing plants into food on a space or other isolated station including an Advanced Life Support (ALS) system is proposed. Regular gravity (1 G) or hypogravity (< 1 G) has been considered. A key feature of this strategy is to include not only kitchen-scale preparation and processing but small-scale advanced food processing such as thermoplastic extrusion, homogenization, centrifugation, fermentation, etc. These processes are flexible and multifunctional and could significantly increase the variety, palatability, nutritional value, and shelf stability of foods, and the number of menu items based on ALS crops. The processes would minimize the time to process the food items and provide psychological support for the crew. The periodic processing of various crop harvests into shelf-stable foods for long-term storage can be performed. Unit operations as illustrated by various processing flow sheets on the manufacturing of individual products will be discussed in association with the equipment.