Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff Lauren Vogel bam here with another classic episode
Speaker 1: from our archives. Among the many puzzles and problems that
Speaker 1: we need to solve before we could send astronauts off
Speaker 1: on long term missions to the Moon, let alone such
Speaker 1: far away places as Mars, is the fact that humans
Speaker 1: need to eat, and that it's a psychological issue as
Speaker 1: well as a physical one, which brings us to today's question,
Speaker 1: could human waste feed astronauts? Hi brain Stuff, Lauren Vogel
Speaker 1: bomb here, a manned mission to Mars might take around
Speaker 1: six months. Suffice it to say, when meal times roll around,
Speaker 1: astronauts won't be dialing up delivery pizza and root. Instead,
Speaker 1: they may be eating nutrition derived from their own fecal matter,
Speaker 1: a concept that would save on cargo space and wait
Speaker 1: while maximizing materials already found on the spacecraft. At Penn
Speaker 1: State Universe, the scientists are developing a system that leverages
Speaker 1: certain types of microbes that convert human solid waste into
Speaker 1: protein and fat Latin foods. Researchers, for better or Worse,
Speaker 1: have already called the result a microbial goo that's sort
Speaker 1: of reminiscent of Vegemite, a comparison that seems unlikely to
Speaker 1: please Vegemites corporate executives. Because it's difficult and time consuming
Speaker 1: to grow food in space, astronauts have to rely on
Speaker 1: items in their closed environment. The lynch pin of the
Speaker 1: system is anaerobic digestion, which can break down certain materials
Speaker 1: without the need for oxygen. It's a common process for
Speaker 1: reducing municipal waste on Earth. In tests, the digestion process
Speaker 1: produced methane gas. That gas turns out to be useful
Speaker 1: in growing a microbe called Methylococcus capsulattice, which is already
Speaker 1: used for animal feed pellets and contains about fifty protein
Speaker 1: and thirty six percent fat content. According to the National
Speaker 1: Academy of Sciences, humans function best when they ingest nutrition
Speaker 1: with about fifty carbohydrates, twenty percent fat, and tend to protein.
Speaker 1: So the goose still has a ways to go before
Speaker 1: it can count as an ideal food source. The tests
Speaker 1: relied on substitute liquid and solid waste instead of actual
Speaker 1: human wastes. When the real thing is introduced, there will
Speaker 1: also be concerns about pathogens that could cause illnesses. That's
Speaker 1: where tweaking the pH levels and or temperatures may help.
Speaker 1: Tests showed that by increasing the system's temperatures to around
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty eight degrees fahrenheit that seventy degrees celsius,
Speaker 1: most germs were eliminated, yet the nutritious microbe Thermis aquaticus survived. Alternately,
Speaker 1: they raised the alkalinity of another batch and found that
Speaker 1: bacteria called halo Monus deciderrata still managed to proliferate while
Speaker 1: germs did not. The team borrowed concepts from commercial aquarium
Speaker 1: filters that use fixed film filters to neutralize fish waste.
Speaker 1: The filters incorporate a bacteria laden film and were adapted
Speaker 1: by researchers to accommodate methane production. The result solid waste
Speaker 1: can be treated in a matter of hours instead of
Speaker 1: days plus. Because the system is self contained, it really
Speaker 1: doesn't require much babysitting other than you know, the necessary inputs.
Speaker 1: But there's also the matter of taste. Lisa Steinberg, the
Speaker 1: lead author on the study, says that the bacteria could
Speaker 1: be mixed with other materials and flavorings to make it
Speaker 1: more palatable. She said in an email, it's nearly certain
Speaker 1: that there would be plants grown in conjunction with this
Speaker 1: food stuff, which would provide additional flavors and textures. And
Speaker 1: what about the potential psychological issues associated with consuming a
Speaker 1: material of such dreary origins. Steinberg said astronauts already have
Speaker 1: to drink their own processed urine, so they're probably accustomed
Speaker 1: to things being done differently in space than on Earth.
Speaker 1: Some astronauts on the International Space Station do already recycle
Speaker 1: some of their urine. Poop, on the other hand, has
Speaker 1: a more spectacular ending. It's blasted into space, caught on
Speaker 1: Earth's orbit, and then burns up like a shooting star
Speaker 1: on reentry. Yes, in space, poop has historically been a problem.
Speaker 1: Maybe now poop will be part of the solution. While
Speaker 1: these still experimental concept may not exactly fire up astronauts appetites,
Speaker 1: it may eventually provide sustenance to space explorers who have
Speaker 1: a limited buffet options among the stars. Today's episode was
Speaker 1: written by Nathan Chandler and produced by Tristan McNeil and
Speaker 1: Tyler Klang. For more on this and lots of other
Speaker 1: far out topics, visit House to Forks dot com. Brain
Speaker 1: Stuff is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts,
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