There is nothing as motivational for a good deed as a reward. In order to sustain the existing ideas or spur newly imbibed ones, capital can act as a catalyst.
Therefore, when NASA found its ideas struggling and dwindling somewhere in the middle of overcoming a significant challenge, it had to ask for solutions and provide an award in return.
A staggering $1 million has been announced for revolutionizing the pathways of food intake by its Astronauts in space.
This happens as NASA endeavors more to reach farther but while it thinks of fuel needed for combustion in its launch vehicles, it also needs the greatest fuel of all: Food, which will could fulfil the energy requirement for uncovering the unknown mysteries.
And the world intellectuals can help to find, design, build, and demonstrate techniques for an innovative and sustainable food production, under the competition named Deep Space Food Challenge.
This is a NASA Centennial Challenge, part of Prizes, Challenges and Crowdsourcing program under the NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, Washington.
Why do space researchers keep looking for food production methods?
Food tends to lose its nutritional value with time. Consequently, astronauts cannot help but compromise with maintaining their health for great missions in far-off worlds.
“Feeding astronauts over long periods within the constraints of space travel will require innovative solutions. Pushing the boundaries of food technology will keep future explorers healthy and could even help feed people here at home”, explains the NASA’s administrator.
Not only in space but on Earth that is experiencing climate change in worst ways, we need to transform and strengthen our food security so that we can continue to produce food efficiently with even lesser amounts of resources used and that too without compromising the needs of our future beings.
Resilient food systems can even absolve us from the increasing cycles of floods and droughts threatening us more with increasing Earthly temperatures.
That is indeed a challenge, especially for the booming population in short run, that even with best intentions has become a burden on this planet.
But what else makes the matter so crucial?
Food is a basic need for any human in the whole Cosmos, but what makes it extra important is its need to negate vulnerability.
Human body has to endure all sorts of physiological and psychological pains in their travel away from home planet. There can be varied hazards, summed up by NASA as RIDGE: Space Radiation, Isolation and Confinement, Distance from Earth, Gravity fields, and Hostile/Closed Environments.
There is always an increased risk of resultant mutation, cataracts, heart or degenerative diseases from radiation exposure in space which is mainly driven by the long-term impacts.
As per several researches, the type of radiation emanating in the space environment has larger impact on human health in contrast to the radiation experienced on Earth.
However, space anemia has turned out to be a bigger threat for our people in space, which necessitates the nutrition and its production in space even more.
What is Space Anemia? Can it ever be corrected?
Anemia is a condition when the human blood, irrespective of gender or age, lacks enough healthy red blood cells (RBCs) such that it hampers the oxygen carrying capacity and its crucial availability.
According to a new study by researchers at the Ottawa Hospital and the University of Ottawa in Ontario, Canada published in Nature Medicine, human body in space experience the destruction of about 50% more red blood cells than they can on Earth and the condition persists even after their return.
Scientists were accustomed to this phenomenon called space anemia and expected it to wane with time as the astronauts’ bodies world begin to adapt in space.
Previously, astronauts were assumed to lose 10% of their RBCs in Space which would return to normal after ten days in space, referred to as “15-day ailment”.
But the study has suggested otherwise: “Our study shows that upon arriving in space, more red blood cells are destroyed, and this continues for the entire duration of the astronaut’s mission”.
RBC reduction and the threat to Astronaut’s life:
This can be dangerous to human representatives of Earth as they need constant concentration and even maneuver in order to survive.
The Doctor explains: “Having fewer red blood cells in space isn’t a problem when your body is weightless. But when landing on Earth and potentially on other planets or moons, anemia affecting your energy, endurance, and strength can threaten mission objectives. The effects of anemia are only felt once you land and must deal with gravity again.”
The human body completes a cycle of creation and destruction of 2 million RBCs per second on Earth while it continues to destroy 3 million RBCs every second on International Space Station (ISS).
Four to five months after their return may help normalize the condition but still, the destruction is 30% more than the times they went to space.
“If we can find out exactly what’s causing this anemia, then there is a potential to treat it or prevent it, both for astronauts and for patients here on Earth,” explains a Researcher.
How can this ailment be ascertained?
In the study, astronauts’ breath and blood samples were collected before their space trip, onboard the International Space Station and even after their landing on Earth.
Since the destruction of one heme molecule (the deep-red pigment in an RBC yields a molecule of carbon monoxide, their levels for the same were precisely monitored.
Problem is that this ailment and its impacts worsen with time spent and long-journeys made in Space, a threat to well-being and even the mission in case of Mars or beyond.
It is also claimed that an increased RBC production will require a rigorously improved rich diet. RBC synthesis would generate excess strain on bone marrow functions and trigger the need for increased energy consumption. This is already difficult to render in portions of Universe, other than Earth.