TECH

Bioreactor is created to create food from astronaut poo...Pennsylvania biologists and engineers have created the first "space" bioreactor that turns astronauts and cosmonauts into feces in a nutritious blend of proteins and fats, according to an article in Life Sciences in Space Research."Although this idea seems strange to ordinary people, it does not differ from pasta food made from yeast extract and beer wort," he said. "We have developed and implemented the concept of simultaneous use of astronaut bio-waste and its transformation into an edible mass." Christopher House of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, USA.The problem of food supply to travelers who will travel to distant space, as NASA now believes, is the second most important problem after the high level of space radiation, which must be solved by humanity before the trips to Mars or to other planets.Scientists are trying to solve the second major problem in two ways - to create new types of compact, calorie-rich space food, as well as to replace all of the astronauts' food by designing systems that would allow them to produce food independently.House's team tried to unite both processes linked to human vital activity and thus realize the dream of many science fiction writers. Therefore, the scientists propose the transformation of the unusable residues of the body into food with the help of microbes.This idea, however, has two disadvantages. First, the transformation process is quite long, and the methane used in the processing of bacteria can cause a fire on board or at the International Space Station.But biologists and engineers have settled these flaws by increasing the speed of waste processing with the help of special membranes now used in water purification and the bacterium Methylococcus capsulatu that is able to "eat" methane .According to House, this facility can process more than half of the bio-waste of five or six astronauts over the course of a day.




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